


Eagle's Kin

by Aelwyn



Series: Eagle's Kin [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Gen, Seriously this is just a ramble disguised as cohesive plot, The Assassins deserve nice things and for the most part they can have them here, This is basically an excuse to do major fix-it fic, Uses canon elements of the game series up through the base installment of VALHALLA, enjoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 58,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27037294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelwyn/pseuds/Aelwyn
Summary: There was a legend that in times of great need the champion of the Assassins would come forth to guide their wayward people back toward the correct path. The Templars had a name for this champion, calling them simply ‘The Phoenix.’ The Assassins were more poetic, referring to them as ‘Eagle’s Kin.’Regardless, there was a faint truth to the myth; Aita had his sages, but a child of Atlantis had a similar method of immortality. Only... it didn’t work in quite the same way. Hazards of being the trial experiment and all, not all of the bugs had been worked out.While the Sages worked toward readying the world for Juno’s return, the Eagle’s Kin held only the purpose of serving to give voice to the people. To watch over them, and bring them justice. When the Assassin’s Brotherhood faltered, they would take it under their wing and teach it to once again take flight.Many centuries in many places, from Athens to Alexandria to Acre to Antigua and far, far beyond. Assassins, all of them. All with their own struggles, their own lives, influencing the world they now inhabit around them.Whether an Auditore, a Kenway, or a Miles, one thing remains constant:The Eagle’s Kin is Reborn.
Relationships: Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad/Maria Thorpe, Arno Dorian/Élise de la Serre, Ezio Auditore da Firenze/Sofia Sartor, Rebecca Crane/Shaun Hastings (implied - Desmond totally ships it)
Series: Eagle's Kin [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017811
Comments: 98
Kudos: 174





	1. Prologue: In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I will not be writing from the POV of Haytham, Aveline, Adéwalé, Shay, Shao, Arbaaz, Jacob, or Nikolai. This is because they either interacted with other Assassins already being utilized as main characters, or because their children did. If you’re wondering why I won’t be including Eivor in this, that is because of canon plot in Valhalla making that virtually impossible.
> 
> Please note that, after Part I, I will also not be writing for Kassandra or Bayek. Kassandra was the First, as it were, and most of Bayek’s decisions were influenced by his own experiences rather than that of his past life. 
> 
> After Part II I will not be continuing writing for Edward, Connor, or Evie. Edward’s story is mainly affected by the plot of being a pirate, and regardless of Assassin status or no he would be looking for the Observatory. Connor’s, while differing in the way he and Haytham interact for obvious reasons, is all about taking out the Templars and re-establishing the Brotherhood. There isn’t much to alter there aside from Haytham, which is already going to be addressed in Part II. As for Evie, there is little that can be altered about putting an end to Starrick’s reign aside from Jacob being more interested and helpful in what Evie is doing with the Shroud, or more Evie being more interested in her brother’s own schemes to liberate the city. 
> 
> Just... I want you guys to remember that this is a fun little side project for me, and I don’t want to expend too much effort on it. The characters I’ve chosen to be the Eagle’s Kin do all influence Desmond in some way (and his story is definitely what I like to think of as the main plot), so regardless of whether I do a close look at that or not it all coalesces. I have chosen, for the main cast of characters to follow, Altaïr, Ezio, Arno, and Desmond. Why? Because giving them knowledge of “past” lives would drastically alter the way their “present” lives played out. The mistake at the Temple, the hanging of the family, the death of De La Serre, the capture by Abstergo. All of it would be severely affected. 
> 
> Again, I don’t want you guys to take this too seriously. I’m just using this as a fun little way to pass the time. It’s mostly Drabble Chapters.

_They called it ‘Aeterne.’_

_It was to be a new way out, the way forward. Survival for their people. And it began in Atlantis._

_Amid gleaming white walkways and towers, amongst vibrant green parks and shimmering waterways clear as crystal. Where the waters were cool and the winds were warm and the sun shone bright and welcoming, Isu technology and culture was at its height and they and the inferior human race lived in peace._

_Yet far off, away from the lax reign of Poseidon and his wandering watchful eye, in the lower city close to the canals, there lay an institution with its entrance cloaked in shadow. It was fitting that such an institution should exist with the threat of the Sun only just making its presence known upon the far horizon. Those that dwelled inside were quiet and patient, waiting for their moment._

_When Adam and Eve stole one among many Apples in the distant city state of Eden, civil war broke out across the world. Atlantis itself had become engulfed by the waters around it after it had been judged and found wanting, and without further hesitation the very few who were aware of the oncoming catastrophe from above while humans and Isu fought below came together as one to build for the future._

_In a Grand Temple, far underground and away from the War, they came together. From Jupiter and Minerva to survivors of Atlantis, this group of forward-thinking individuals researched many paths toward preservation. Aeterne, studied by Juno and her husband Aita, was among them._

_It was presented as a humane method of transference in which one’s spirit could be moved into the body of another, with the individual a willing volunteer and compatriot. This was not true. Juno and Aita walked the shadows of the Temple just as they had in Atlantis._

_They saw the Dikastes, the Hybrid enforcer of Atlantis born of Isu and Human both, as lesser. In mixing her Feyan and human blood with that of the Aesir, her son was even lesser than she. Given to Minerva for safe-keeping by his parents to ward against Havi’s wrath, it was thought that he would be safe in the Grand Temple. His death brought attention of the project to Minerva and Jupiter, and it was banned. Unable to use so-called ‘volunteers,’ Aita himself offered to try. With his death, Juno conceded defeat in the project, and Aeterne was no more._

_Driven mad with grief, the boy’s father gave his life trying to end the life of all Aesir. In cutting short the Fate Threads of many of their lives, he lost his own. And the Dikastes? The daughter of Nike and a human guard of Atlantis? She joined Adam and Eve and survived the Toba Catastrophe, emerging to guide humanity toward survival before her death in memory of her lost family. The very concept of ‘Aeterne’ had joined all that she held sacred._

_But ‘Aeterne’ means eternal. Everlasting. Imperishable. Perpetual. Without end. And what was thought to be a failure had succeeded not once, but twice..._


	2. PART I

PART I - REALIZATIONS

I am who I am; no more, no less.

\- Terry Goodkind, _Wizard’s First Rule (Sword of Truth, #1)_


	3. The Eagle Bearer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I played Odyssey, I spared Nikolaos and Kassandra’s step-brother Stentor. The way the story progressed due to my choices, I was able to spare Myrrine only if I killed Deimos, Alexios.
> 
> I also played as Alexios the first time around and... gotta tell ya, I preferred playing as Alexios. It’s nothing to do with Kassandra really, I like her, but I simply like Alexios better. I bear no ill will toward the game Canon saying Kassandra was the “true main character.”

The soft mewling cries of a child asking for his mother would have reduced Kassandra to tears had she not been so incredibly numb to begin with. She had been staying in her home, Nikolaos and Myrrine fighting to regain part of what they had lost. Stentor was off somewhere quite literally spearheading the fight against Athens... 

Darius had taken her beloved Elpidios far away to keep him safe, the man who had become her second father and she his second daughter. Any family that she had come to care deeply about, aside from Barnabas, had left her, and the parents who had raised her as a child were strangers.

In summary, Kassandra had no one to confide in about her deepest worries while she stayed in Sparta.

...That was... part of the point, really. Barnabas would ask. Barnabas would push. As would Herodotus - though Herodotus would only do so once, while Barnabas would continue to the point of nagging. And this... this was personal. So personal, strangely, for something that barely involved herself. It involved- well, it involved someone else.

... _Something_ else.

The Staff, much like the Apples, had interacted with the display technology of what was left of Atlantis and constructed a world of the gods for her to walk through, to interact and speak with those that she had known and loved in life - or in the case of her grandfather Leonidas, wished to have met. Kassandra had literally fought her way through Hades itself to reach Atlantis, where she had served as the Dikastes, the protector of the mighty city. She realized that these memories had been left as an account of the past, given from a broken woman in the hopes of bettering the future.

It had all been an illusion, a dream world. She had never truly entered into Elysium, into Hades, nor Atlantis. 

And yet.

...And yet, she remembered. Remembered being the Dikastes, a true half and half hybrid of Isu and Human. It was all hazy, truly difficult to take shape, but her encounter with Juno and Aita in the simulation had truly riled her. There had been immense hatred and terror in her reaction to them, deep down. The memories of the Dikastes were not her own, but in a strange and hazy way she recognized the woman as her mother.

It was after that that the visions had begun. Each night, walking through Atlantis, a small child chasing after her mother and crying for her as the strong arms of her grandmother carried her toward safety. Conceived of a forbidden love that unwillingly mingled the blood of three peoples. Never truly belonging to any of these worlds, but hated by two and unknown to another. 

Three worlds that violently became one in a civil war and then burned in the light of a forgotten Sun. 

Her own mind and body burning deep underground, burning against her will because of Juno and Aita. 

And now she was here, alive once again, in a different shape. A different _kind_. 

Kassandra knew nothing of how it had been done, nor why. Just that it had occurred. 

And that she was to be the first of many to come. 


	4. Last of the Medjay

“This is not the first son that the Order of the Ancients have taken from me,” he murmured. Aya shifted sharply away from him, glassy eyes hardening with pained suspicion.

“...What?”

“Khemu, he-“ Bayek broke off and swallowed thickly before drawing a shuddering breath and beginning again. “He is not the first son I have lost to them. The Order of the Ancients.”

“Who _was_ the first?” Aya asked. Her eyes had narrowed, a hint of warning in her voice.

“This is not the first life I have lived, Aya,” he answered numbly. “I don’t know how or why, but... I have led other lives before this one. And the last, the one before this... I was a Greek mercenary with the blood and heart of a Spartan playing both sides in the Spartan and Athenian war. As were the Cult of Kosmos. And when the Cult were killed, when I- when I ended what they had begun, I found, for a short time, peace and a family. I had a son named Elpidios. And to protect him, to keep him safe from the Hunters that had pursued his grandfather Darius for many years, I had to send him away from me. His grandfather took him to keep him safe.”

“And... his... his mother?” Came the tentative question. Bayek laughed darkly, meeting the worried gaze of his wife.

“I _was_ his mother, Aya. My name was Kassandra, and Elpidios’ father... his name was Natakas. I... His father Darius and I, we erected a memorial for him after he was killed defending our son. I remember very little of the lives I have led, Aya. I know only that Kassandra was the first to be reborn, and that my original life ended far against my will. I remember so little of either life except for the more traumatic parts, the defining moments. But my favorite foods, languages I spoke, friendships... I see faces at night, Aya, and do not know their names.”

“I-“ Aya swallowed and regrouped. “When did you first start... remembering?” 

“The night Khemu died. The artifact they held, the trauma of losing another child to them. It- it was more than enough to rend my heart in two and break my mind along with it.”

“What did you do when... Natakas? Was killed?”

“I hunted down the last of them. I stopped at nothing to find my son and rescue him from their clutches.” Bayek’s spine straightened as he looked out over his home, over Siwa, from the roof of their dwelling. His eyes hardened with resolve. “And I will do so again.” 

“I will be there with you every step of the way,” Aya promised, humming her agreement as she rested her head on his shoulder.

-/\\-

_I will be there with you every step of the way._

Bayek scoffed internally at himself as those words replayed in his head, watching the woman who had once been his wife walk away from him for what he knew deep in his heart to be the last time. Aya’s promise had died with her name when she has become Amunet, and she had been Amunet long before she had cast off the mantle of Aya. 

They were naive, before. But they knew now. Darius had been the first Hidden One, and Bayek was determined to follow his footsteps. To live by his example. 

He turned away from the silhouette of Amunet on her horse as she road toward the harbor, to return to Rome by leaving the Sinai behind her. He too turned his back to the past and looked toward the future as he walked the dusty path toward their new Bureau. His novices awaited him.


	5. The Eagle of Masyaf

The ground crunched silently under his soft-soled boots, his steps light and precise. The tunnel was bathed in dim torchlight and he kept to the heavy shadows avoiding excavation workers, the two wraiths on his heels matching his precision and skill. They came upon a bend in the tunnel, a bright section without place to hide, and an old man turned away from them blocking the path. Altaïr’s jaw clenched with impatience as he debated his next move, shifting on his toes, before he sprang with his blade hand outstretched. He felt Malik’s fingers brush his robes has he tried in vain to stop him, but he was already airborne for a high profile assassination.

No one else was in the tunnel except them, and the kill would be quick and clean. The target would have no time to cry out. Altaïr flexed his fingers on his blade hand, preparing to engage the blade, felt the satisfaction of his muscles flex and tense with well-trained movements- 

_No! A Hidden One does not stain their hands with the blood of the virtuous!_

Altaïr’s fist slammed into the back of the old man, the blade unengaged, as he lowered the unconscious but still alive victim to the floor of the tunnel. His breath came in rapid, sharp heaves and he swallowed hard to bring it under control as Malik and Kadar moved from their hiding spots to join him. He masked the movements of trembling hands by picking up a large rock and lightly smearing the blunt edge of it in the bloody gash made from his knuckle plate, dropping the stone onto the ground to make it appear as if it had fallen from the ceiling and struck the man unawares.

“I thought you were going to kill him,” Malik said quietly, kneeling to assess the damage inflicted and humming slightly in approval. “I am glad to be mistaken.”

“I was- I was going to,” Altaïr admitted, his arm flexing to engage and disengage the blade several times over. He focused on studying the mechanism to ignore the confusing onslaught of previously-buried memories in his mind, placing the voice that had cried out in agony at his first decision as Bayek’s and swallowing. “But I remembered our Creed. He was guiltless in all of this, merely a source of cheap labor for Majd Addin.” 

“It would have been a perfect kill,” Kadar offered admiringly. Malik turned sharply to glare at him. 

“Then let this be a lesson for you,” he snapped. “The easiest solution to our problem is not the one that would have heeded our Creed. Do you remember the first rule? It is first for a reason!”

“...I... ‘stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent,’” Kadar murmured, suitably chastised as he stared at the ground and scraped his foot through the gravel. Altaïr, for his part, took the distraction of the Al Sayf brothers as a decent moment to get his mental house in order before entirely composing himself and looking onward toward their objective.

“Save the ethics lesson for afterward, Malik,” he muttered. “We are lucky that our voices have not carried.” Kadar smirked and he leveled a sharp golden gaze on him. “But there _will_ be a lesson, Kadar.” The smirk dissipated to be replaced by a grudging nod. Kadar was a Novice, his hidden blade allowed only for the mission and to be returned as soon as he had arrived back at the Bureau in Jerusalem where it had been supplied. Malik, a grade below Altaïr but a Master all the same - both of them uncommonly young for such an honor - nodded in agreement and moved to scout ahead of them. The soft, deliberate scuff of boot in gravel was the indicator for them to follow, and all three of them crept out into the hidden underground chamber below the ruins of the rebuilt Temple. 

The chamber was full of dust, sand, crumbling stone, and carved pillars. High in the wall, above a cut opening, was a ledge with an ornate chest resting upon it. The chest had two poles run through it to be supported by pole-bearers, the sides gilded with gold. The lid was crowned by a pair of Cherubim facing each other inwards, an egg-shaped sphere with four wings on its corners sitting between them. 

“Is that the Ark of the Covenant?” Kadar whispered excitedly. He was practically vibrating with eager energy beside his more experienced peers. 

“It was never found,” Altaïr murmured, shrugging. “Hidden many years ago and never recovered.”

“I had always pegged you as a skeptic,” Malik replied just as softly, frowning as he turned toward his peer. 

“Yes, well...” he coughed. “I mean, it’s _there_.” Malik’s eyes narrowed in suspicion but he said nothing, merely shifted in his crouch. All three ducked lower as an entourage walked through the doorway above which the Ark sat. The group in question were Templar knights, bedecked in their bright crimson crosses and steel helmets. At the head of the group was none other than Robert De Sablé himself, helmet off and tucked under one arm as he turned about face and grinned nastily upward at the Ark. 

“What do we do?” Kadar hissed so softly the man on either side barely heard him. 

“We could try a direct approach, but-“

_Hide in plain sight._

Bayek again, chastising him. Altaïr stifled an exasperated groan by clenching his jaw and glaring at the men below them. Of course the co-founder of their Brotherhood would be one of his three past lives, almost as if he were mocking him. The code of the Medjay had heavily influenced the Assassin’s Creed, the Creed of the Hidden Ones... 

“Malik, you and Kadar circle around toward the Ark. Al Mualim said we were only to retrieve the artifact sitting atop the Ark.”

“And you?” Malik murmured. 

“I will provide distraction by revealing myself. So, please. Work quickly so that I can get out of this place with my life and limbs intact.” 

“No, wait-!” But he was gone, sliding noiselessly down the rungs of a rickety ladder and onto the ground. He waited for Malik to quit cursing as the brothers Al Sayf went in opposite directions, clinging to old stone and small handholds near the roof of the chamber as they shimmied toward their target, and took a deep breath. 

“Hold, Templars!” He called. Robert turned sharply, as did the rest of his party, to watch his approach. The man smiled, his movements easy and his stance open, providing ample places for Altaïr to deliver a fatal blow. He was making it clear that he was not threatened. Altaïr made no move to take advantage of such an invitation, eyeing the heavy gauntlets the Templar wore and smartly keeping out of striking distance.

“Welcome, Assassin,” Robert called. “By what means has The Old Man of the Mountain sent you to your death?” 

“Al Mualim has sent none to their death that fear it,” Altaïr retorted. “I have no business with you, but know that you stand between an Assassin and his objective.”

“Ah, yes, your mission.” Robert paced slowly back and forth, moving tauntingly in and out of reach. “The Artifact. Do you not wonder how it is that your Master came to know of such an object?” 

“I imagine the same way you did,” Altaïr said coolly, taking a wide and balanced stance as he clasped his hands together in front of him in a passive gesture. “After all, Hidden Ones have their resources just as the Order of the Ancients do. Or has your brotherhood changed its title as mine has in light of the recent conflict?” 

“...You are remarkably well-informed for a _field Assassin_ ,” Robert sneered, something very much like uncertainty and unease flashing in his eyes. “I thought Al Mualim had neglected to teach your kind its own history when he rebuilt your Order in light of the _purge._ ” His sneer returned. “It makes it so much easier for him to control you that way.”

“I have my resources.” He resisted the urge to direct his gaze toward Malik and Kadar to check their progress; Robert was paranoid and suspicious enough as it was without giving him a reason to suspect there were others in the room, much less others that were close to retrieving the artifact. Malik was an experienced professional and what Kadar lacked in successful missions he made up for with raw talent. 

The other Knights in the chamber were shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, most likely wondering why the Assassin had taken none of the opportunities offered to him to strike and being put off by it, and Altaïr grit his teeth slightly. If this went on much longer it would become obvious that he was stalling for time. He made a point of impatiently flexing his hidden blade out and in, letting some of his frustration show through in the way he wanted it to be presented, and to his relief the wandering attention of the Templars abruptly focused on the soft _snik_ sound as the long and thin knife sprang forward and retracted. 

“Am I irking you?” Robert asked with a smirk.

“Only insofar as I allow you to irk me,” Altaïr retorted, making a point of shifting on his feet and moving slightly to the side as if surreptitiously scouting for an open path toward his objective. Robert moved to block him in whichever way he moved. 

“Sir! Assassins!” One of Robert’s Knights exclaimed, pointing upward. Kadar’s foot had slipped and dislodged the smallest of rubble onto the man’s helmet, causing him to look for the source. With a wince, Altaïr turned to look at his associates where they clung, prone, to the poles of the Ark; Malik had the artifact in his hands frozen in the process of moving it into the bag he carried at his side. 

“Is it too late to convince them we were repairing the moulding of the architecture?” Kadar asked nervously. 

Absolute chaos erupted immediately after, with Malik shoving the artifact into his satchel without ceremony and he and Kadar leaping from the ledge onto the backs of two startled knights, their hidden blades digging deep into the exposed necks between helmet and chain mail. Kadar’s first blade kill went undocumented nor remarked upon in the heat of desperate survival. Altaïr had dodged the swing of Robert’s gauntleted fist and struck his own blow into the man’s knee with his hidden blade, feeling a dark satisfaction as the man collapsed into a kneel. His respect for the Templar leader only grew when the man merely let out a grunt of pain, the agony reflected in his eyes but his tongue remaining silent in front of his men. 

The opening they were fighting under gave an ominous cracking sound, and all looked up in horror as the heavy stone resting on weak timber began to fall toward them. The Assassins ran to exit the chamber, the Templars cursing as they leapt clear, and with an almighty crash the two opposing sides were separated. 

...Mostly. Two Templars were on _their_ side, fresh and ready for a fight. Kadar had collapsed from massive blood loss clutching at his abdomen, Malik relying heavily on his right arm as the sleeve of his white tunic ran crimson from his left shoulder. Altaïr growled softly with pain as he pulled his foot from the rubble and shook it out, desperately hoping it wasn’t broken even as he stepped between the uninjured Templars and his brethren. 

“Give us the artifact and you can leave with your lives,” the more decorated of the two ordered. The two conscious Assassins blinked, mentally regrouping; a woman’s voice had emitted from behind the helmet. 

“To return to Al Mualim without it would make our lives forfeit,” Altaïr replied warily, sensing someone he could reason with. “I’m sure you understand.”

“I do. Which is why I cannot return to Robert without it, lest his regard for me diminish.”

“Then we are at an impasse.” 

“So it would seem.” There was a long, contemplative pause broken only by Malik’s ragged and pained breathing. “Do not fight us. We are two, and better armored. You are both injured.”

“I do not need both of my feet to fight, nor does Malik require anything other than his sword arm,” Altaïr snapped. “He protects his brother by blood.” 

“Very well.” The woman jerked her head toward her adversaries, beckoning the other Knight forward. The man rushed Malik, who cried out in pain and grit his teeth to heft his sword while Altaïr drew his blade against the woman. They came together in violent, quick blows, both of them masters of their craft in respective styles, the clash of blades and movement of footwork resembling some sort of macabre and dangerous dance as they circled and parried and blocked, neither having the upper hand over the other. 

Once, before the Awakening, Altaïr might have been prone to impatience coloring his attack and opening him to mistakes. But with the seasoned skill of a Spartan Mercenary and an Egyptian Medjay coursing through his veins, he focused on holding his defense. The Templar wore heavy armor and was throwing her all into each swing behind the broadsword she wielded, and outlasting her until she tired would leave cracks in her own defenses for him to exploit. But if he got too close, the weight behind her blows would be devastating. 

She was experienced but prone to impatience, just as he had once been, and when Malik stabbed his sword through the eye slit of his adversary’s helmet she was unavoidably distracted. Altaïr dropped to the ground and swept her legs out from under her, pouncing and pinning her with one hand braced against her collarbone and the other holding his engaged hidden blade after removing her helmet. 

“Kill me,” she spat, light hazel eyes blazing as her messy brunette bun spilled around her head. “You’ve won.”

“And it would be a dishonorable kill,” Altaïr replied, not wavering in his vigilance to keep her out of commission. “Concede, and withdraw.” His head tilted slightly and his lip curled with amusement. “I could injure you so that the failure is not as severe.” 

“...Five minutes,” she decided after some hesitation. “And then I pursue you once again.”

“While that would be fair, we’re short on time.”

“What are you-“ Altaïr brought his fist down on the side of her head, effectively knocking her out.

“I do not envy the headache you will have when you regain consciousness,” he muttered, walking over with a slight limp toward Malik and kneeling beside him as they checked over Kadar’s prone form. “How is he?”

“Breathing, but critical,” Malik sighed. “And my arm...” he winced, pulling the satchel over his head and tossing it to Altaïr. “Take the artifact back to Al Mualim. Leave us.”

“Not until I bring you safely to Jerusalem’s Rafiq.” 

“Altaïr-“

“The Master has survived long without this artifact, he can survive without it a while longer.” He eyed Kadar’s wound and then Malik’s loose sleeve, reaching over and carefully tearing the last of it off to pack the wound and then retying Kadar’s belt to hold it in place. “Not my best work, but it should hold.”

“...Thank you,” Malik murmured. They stood, mutually dragging Kadar between them, as they moved toward the light up ahead. 

-/\\- 

Altaïr paused at the gate of Masyaf, slumped low in the saddle, and took a deep steadying breath. Shortly after the Jerusalem Rafiq had treated Kadar and Malik’s wounds, the city’s ruler Majd Addin had ‘made an example of him’ and publicly executed him. A pigeon had been sent to Al Mualim informing him of such developments, and seeing as Kadar could not be moved yet and Malik refused to leave his side Malik had been appointed the new Rafiq, his arm healing slowly but steadily. Had it not been for the renowned skill of his predecessor, he would have lost it and Kadar would have died. 

He had continued toward Masyaf after nursing a mild sprained ankle whilst waiting to see if Kadar would pull through, his cargo precious and ominous at his side. He had been asked to retrieve an artifact. Problem was, the few memories he _could_ access in their full entirety showed that not much good ever came from said artifacts. 

That was another thing. The regained memories... the ones of his life in Atlantis were just as vague and disjointed as they had always been, but the ones of Kassandra seemed to be more faded. One more life away from her, and as they piled up some of the details slipped through the cracks. Would he even remember her five or six lives down the line? 

...Would anyone remember _him?_ Oh, but that was an uncomfortable thought... researching Bayek had turned up little to nothing, even in the dustiest of scrolls he could get his hands on while at the Jerusalem Bureau in its Archives; there had been several references to Aya or Amunet however. That gave just as much comfort as it did disappointment... he had wanted to be left in peace in death, knowing his legacy would continue into another reborn form. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t looked forward to smirking at the mention of a ‘mysterious co-founder’ of the Order. But there was... nothing. Not even the scantest of reference. 

“Altaïr!” 

Altaïr jerked hard in the saddle as the voice of one of the many novices called out to him from inside the gates of the town, his mount nickering softly with concern and chomping at her bit. Habitually he reached down and patted her neck, muttering soothing tones before straightening. 

“Ah...” he swallowed. When had he stopped asking the names of his brothers, or bothering to remember if he was told it? “Yes...”

“...Lateef, sir.” the man sounded somewhat embarrassed and Altaïr felt his face heat. This wasn’t the first time they’d done this song and dance, then. Probably not even the second or third. “The Master expresses his desire for you to Ah...” Lateef trailed off and tugged at an ear. 

“Hurry up?” Altaïr guessed, sighing. The Novice nodded. “It’s all right, Lateef. I have been gone far longer than deemed appropriate. I’ve... had a lot to think about. This mission has been much harder than most.”

“I- the Keep heard about Malik and Kadar, but we don’t- that is to say-“

“They both live, and shall make a full recovery with time and care.” Altaïr dismounted from his favored horse and led her past the exterior paddock to the box stalls, handing her off to one of the stable hands. “I need to go see the Master.”

“Of- of course, sir.” He paused on his way toward the Keep.

“Altaïr.”

“...What?” 

“Call me Altaïr.” With that, he left Lateef gaping behind him and wearily approached the Keep, one foot in front of the other. Along the path he ducked into an unoccupied building and peered inside the satchel, a sickening feeling twisting in his stomach. Tentatively, he reached in and removed the object, inspecting it and wasn’t at all surprised to find a seal. The four wings surrounding an egg were merely a carrier of the artifact itself. He twisted the top, gently lifting it off, and-

Altaïr swore vehemently as an Apple of Eden shone back at him golden and ancient, and with a soft growl he snapped the lid back on the container and shoved the whole thing back into the satchel. He then spent a good few minutes sulking and musing over past traumas before concluding that he couldn’t delay any more than he already had, unease at Al Mualim’s potential intentions for the object festering in the back of his mind as he made the trek past the town and up to the gate of the Keep only to find his path blocked.

“Not now, Abbas,” he sighed. “I’ve had a very long week, and to be quite honest as soon as I deliver the artifact and the report to Al Mualim I would prefer to have a decent night’s sleep and then return to Jerusalem to help Malik settle. I’m sure a set of two functioning hands would be greatly appreciated.” Abbas blinked at this but did not move, merely crossing his arms over his chest and frowning. “Abbas.”

“Is this some sort of ploy? Some... hope that you will gain favor with the Master by being more pleasant than your usual self?”

“I am who I always was and always will be, no more, no less,” Altaïr growled, scowling. “Now move, or be moved. I have no time for petty feuds from childhood today. Al Mualim is already impatient with me for being so late in getting here.”

“As you please, _Master_ ,” Abbas sneered, stepping to the side to let him pass. 

He moved into the lower archives of the Master’s office, steps slow and measured as he passed by the door to the gardens and farther up onto the balcony. Standing behind his desk with the window framing his profile, his hands clasped behind his back and the training yard below, was Al Mualim. He didn’t turn when Altaïr entered and placed the artifact on his desk, nor did he show any physical sign of acknowledgement before he spoke.

“You are late. Where I sent three, only one returns. Speak, and I shall decide the consequences for such incompetence.”

“Robert De Sablé arrived in search of the artifact just as we ourselves did,” Altaïr replied carefully, lowering his head and affecting an obedient posture. “I could not leave my brothers behind.”

“Malik spoke at length about the change that came over you beneath Solomon’s Temple. For what reason has this occurred?”

“Why do you seek an Apple of Eden, Master?” He asked, lifting his eyes only as Al Mualim turned sharply to stare at him with his remaining eye. The glassy one narrowed, as if by sheer force of will it could seek him out and pin him. 

“The Templars are on their way here to retrieve what you took,” the old man snarled, beginning to pace the balcony. “You have compromised our brotherhood!”

“It was not I that ordered the retrieval of such an item that would draw the Order of the Ancients to us regardless of detection or not.”

“You know much that is forbidden,” Al Mualim sighed, scratching at his whitening steel grey beard. At this, Altaïr raised his head fully to meet his gaze. 

“And why should knowledge be forbidden from me?” He challenged. “Knowledge is for all those that seek truth. I am a Hidden One. Am I not then a seeker of truth?” 

“You speak of old ways,” his master snapped with an angry dismissal. “Old ways of doing things that have ceased to be. The Hidden Ones are no more, _Assassin_. As you would do well to remember.”

“So.” It was said flatly, dully. “The Hidden Ones are no more, yet the Order of the Ancients has only evolved and grown.” Altaïr drew in a breath with a heavy heart. “Our founders would weep if they could see what we have become. Blind obedience to one above all, who is answerable to none, and a willing ignorance of our own history.” 

“Curb your tongue before I cut it out. As it, is, your _insolence_ must be addressed by-“

“Master, Robert De Sablé marches toward our gate!” Abbas exclaimed, boots skidding over dusty stone as he peered over the banister of the balcony from the first floor. “He rides with an army!”

“And we shall meet it in what way providence sees fit to have it met,” Al Mualim declared. He lowered his voice as he turned back toward Altaïr, tone dark and eyes afire. “And when all is said and done, do not think that I will forget _you_.” Altaïr glared at him but said nothing, merely followed him outside where he was quickly waylaid by a brother asking him to come to the leaping tower. Once there he waited patiently with two others for the command, taking Al Mualim’s words ‘go with God’ as the signal before performing a Leap of Faith into a haystack below. One of the others, a Novice, performed incorrectly, breaking his leg. As the second Assassin stayed behind to keep him quiet, Altaïr was left to circle around to the exterior watchtower alone. 

This watchtower housed several hewn logs shaved of their branches underneath the flooring, and Altaïr smirked as he cut the tie that held them back. He watched with great satisfaction as the logs fell upon a good contingency of Robert’s forces, eyes meeting the woman from earlier in the sea of helmets and crimson crosses. Her head dipped slightly toward him in acknowledgement of a good strategy as Robert screamed for his forces to retreat, spurring her horse to follow the party. Altaïr decided he liked her. If he had to have a nemesis, at least she was a good one.

The Templars left, the Assassins and townsfolk of Masyaf cheering, and he leapt neatly from the watchtower to land in a saving roll on the ground. He was padding toward the edge of the cliff side to check and see if the Novice was being properly attended to - he was - when it happened. 

There was an unmistakeable _twang_ as an arrow was let loose from a bowstring, and Altaïr looked up in alarm as he saw Abbas aiming for him where he stood on the ramparts next to Al Mualim. Abbas was not the best of shots, however; the arrow struck a surface gash across his arm. It was just enough to knock him off balance and he stumbled over the edge, clawing desperately for the side of the Rocky Mountain and cutting his palms on the stones. 

He caught a ledge that buckled under his weight, and then he was hitting the water hard. 

The world went black.


	6. The Mentor

_It is a good life we lead brother._

_The best._

_May it never change._

_And may it never change us._

All things considered, Ezio’s day had started out quite well. After the fight over the Arno against Vieri and the nighttime rendezvous with Cristina, he had been chased out out of her rooms by her irate father and pursued all the way back to the Auditore home where he had been met by his father Giovanni, whose attempt at discipline had ended in his realization that he had no leg to stand upon because he had done the very same things in his own youth. After a round of errands for both his father and mother, helping Petruccio collect feathers for a ‘secret project,’ and beating up Claudia’s beau Duccio, he had arrived as the sun set to a ransacked home and Claudia, clearly frightened, about to bash him over the head before he managed to dodge out of the way.

After running to the prison to speak with his father through the bars of the window, Ezio had been told to go to Giovanni’s office and collect many things. He had been told that he might find much of it strange, but hadn’t understood what had been meant.

Now, though. Now, as he stood in the secret room behind his father’s office, holding the robes of an Assassin in his hands, he understood. Indeed, he understood far more than his father could ever have imagined him understanding. 

He wasn’t just the son of an Assassin, but the founder of the Brotherhood. He was Bayek of Siwa, former husband of Amunet. He was Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, who had seen the fall of Al Mualim and lived through the Crusades only to see Masyaf overrun by the Mongol hordes. 

Ezio felt at his lip and blinked. He had somehow even managed to carry the same scar, in the same spot, over three lives. 

Rifling about in the chest produced a broken hidden blade and a sheet of his own Codex, and he traced his handwriting with a soft and reminiscent caress, frowning over the torn edges where it had been quite obviously been ripped from the rest of the collection. And- ah. There was the letter for Uberto. 

Giovanni’s Assassin robes would suit him ill, he speculated as he surveyed the attire of a entirely mature man. He was not yet twenty and had yet to broaden in the shoulders or fully deepen his voice. No, he required something better tailored, something more like... 

Heading toward Federico’s room and raiding his closets produced what were clearly the trappings of a Novice Assassin from the very depths of the wardrobe. He could get his own proper robes later when he had the opportunity, but for now he strapped a sheathe about his waist and dropped his father’s sword into it. It would be needed soon. 

When he had gone to see Uberto to deliver the letter, the man was acting... odd. It had set all the instinctive alarm bells going off in Ezio’s head, and he had utilized his Isu sixth sense wary of trouble. The cowled man that had passed by the doorway in the shadows of the house had flowed a bloody red, all but dripping with malice and ill intent. Uberto was hosting an enemy - probably what passed in this day and age as a Templar - and thus he was not to be trusted either. His words of comfort that he would see to everything rang false, and Ezio realized with a heavy heart that the continued existence of his family rested in his hands. 

He needed weapons. A functioning hidden blade. Throwing knives. He needed... 

...He needed a workshop. Luckily, he had just that morning made the acquaintance of a man who happened to have one. He had a single night to prepare to win a one-man battle, and he was going to be ready for it.

-/\\-

“Ezio?” Leonardo asked, leaning with concern against the frame of his door. He cast a quick look about before refocusing his attentions. “It is late. What are you-“

“My father and brothers are to be hanged tomorrow morning for treason,” Ezio cut in quickly, all too aware of the limited time he had. “And if I am not careful, I will be joining them.” Dawning comprehension finally gave way and Leonardo moved immediately to allow him entry. 

“Come in.” There was an awkward pause as Leonardo struggled to work out what to say next. “Is- is there anything I can do to be of help?”

“I need to borrow your workshop.” Ezio bit his lip as he surveyed the cluttered but well-stocked surroundings, noting what tools he did and did not have at his disposal. “And I could use a steady pair of hands.”

“Both are at your service,” Leonardo said earnestly. 

Approval given, Ezio threw himself into repairing the hidden blade and crafting himself a second one while he was at it, filling tiny canisters with the formula for the smoke bombs he had come to enjoy using as a distraction in the later years of his last life and assembling some throwing knives while he was at it. 

The final touches were just being applied to a hastily-assembled leather gauntlet that Leonardo had made on the fly for the new blade, working diligently with needle and thread as he watched Ezio work with rapt attention and interest, and the bells for the execution in the palazzo had begun to ring out as the new gauntlet slipped into place on the right lower arm. 

“I may not see you again for quite some time, if ever,” Ezio said honestly as he drew his peaked cowl over his head at the door. “So, if this is the last time we speak, I just want to thank you. For everything. You have been kind to a family you hardly knew.”

“No child should have to die for something that their parents did,” Leonardo replied somberly. “Especially when the parent was falsely accused in a conspiracy to begin with. Ezio. Good luck.”

“I have a feeling I shall need it.” Ezio extended his arm to give a farewell clasp of friendship, letting out an _oof_ as Leonardo used that action to pull him into a quick hug before letting go just as quickly and stepping back into his workshop. “Goodbye, Leonardo.”

“Safe travels!” 

Ezio knew that such a fanciful notion was entirely out of the question even as he ran toward the Palazzo, throwing knives already primed in his fingers. 

He arrived just in time to hear his father ranting at Uberto, the cowled man from earlier lurking on the platform where his father and brothers were to be hung, and without second thought he threw even as the lever that would remove the trap door from beneath their feet was being pulled.

The blades from his right hand flew true and severed the ropes holding Petruccio and Federico, the blades from his left cutting through Giovanni’s and the other embedding itself in the wood support beam by which the gallows were suspended. Ezio was already in a full run as they fell through the now non-existent floor onto the dusty stones of the Palazzo below, springing neatly into the perfect proper form for an aerial assassination as his feet connected with Uberto’s chest and sent him slamming onto the wood planks of the platform. The cowled man from earlier turned and ran, disappearing into the crowd, even as Ezio’s blade drove itself deep into Uberto’s carotid artery and caused him to bleed out in a manner of seconds. 

“Arqid fi salam,” he muttered as he stood from his target, wiping the blade on the man’s vest as he did so to give it an initial cleaning. 

“Ezio?” Giovanni coughed, rubbing at his neck and pulling the severed noose from about it as he regarded his second son with wide eyes. “What-“

“I’ll explain later, but right now we need to run!” Ezio retorted, drawing his sword in one hand and throwing two or three smoke bombs with the other. “Father, now!” 

Federico wasted no extra time than what he had been given, scooping a terrified Petruccio into his arms and booting out of the Palazzo in the confusion as Giovanni stumbled to his feet and followed, leaving Ezio to bring up the rear. When it became clear that the guards were no longer following them, he took the lead and led them straight toward Leonardo’s workshop. 

He had been expecting - or rather hoping - to see them, and the door opened and closed in a seamless move as they dashed inside.

“I’d like an explanation,” Giovanni began, folding his arms across his chest as he turned to his second son. 

“You should make sure Petruccio is all right,” Ezio replied evenly in response, muttering a thank you to Leonardo when he spotted his father’s robes neatly folded on a nearby table with a satchel that, Ezio presumed, was full of the secret documents that had been in the same chest the robes were in. 

“Papa?” Petruccio sniffled, peeking out from where he was folded snugly against Federico’s side. “Where is Mamma? And Claudia?” 

“Madre and Claudia are safe,” Ezio soothed. “They went with Anetta. We need to meet them on the road.”

“But where will we go?” Federico asked, brow furrowing as he glanced at his younger sibling.

“Monteriggioni. To Uncle Mario. I don’t think we’ll be allowed back into Firenze any time soon... Tuscana has no qualms with the Auditore. Otherwise Uncle Mario would have lost his _other_ eye by now fighting for his honor.” Federico snickered at that and nodded, turning somber once again as Petruccio stifled another sniffle and ruffling the boy’s hair.

“We leave at nightfall,” Giovanni decided as he paced the workshop. He paused by the packed clay moulds Ezio had fashioned to pour molten iron into new hidden blades and blinked, picking one up and examining it. “Where did you find the design for this?”

“I-“ 

“It was on the Codex page Ezio brought with him,” Leonardo said quickly, cutting the man in question off mid-sentence. “It took a bit for me to translate, but I managed.”

“Good work. On both accounts.” Giovanni dropped the mould with a shrug. “If I were discover other similar pages, do you think you could decrypt those as well?”

“Oh, certainly,” Leonardo replied with a bright smile and a curious glance at the relieved expression on Ezio’s face. “Rest here until it becomes dark. I will keep watch.” 

“Thank you.” Giovanni’s shoulders slumped, showing just how truly exhausted he actually was, as he scooped Petruccio off of the table he’d been resting on and carried him toward the nearest chair where he slumped down into it with his youngest child burying his face into his chest. He waited for Petruccio to drift off to sleep before raising his eyes back to his other two sons. “Now... Ezio. About how you handled yourself in the Palazzo-“

“I’ve been teaching him,” Federico said quickly. “About everything. It- it didn’t sit right with me, Ezio not being trained as I was when he was only three years my junior.” 

There was a long pause before Giovanni rubbed at his face and nodded.

“I should be angry, Federico. There was a _reason_ I had not begun training Ezio yet.” His fingers stroked idly through Petruccio’s hair and he sighed. “Yet all I can feel is gratitude.” He sniffed. “Get some sleep, the both of you. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

As soon as he was asleep, Leonardo and Federico both turned as one and cornered Ezio - literally in the corner - to get some answers.

“We’ve both covered for you tonight, and you and I both know that Codex page talks about the efficacy of different poisons rather than hidden blades,” Leonardo said pointedly, crossing his arms over his chest in an attempt to appear intimidating. 

“How do you know the things you do, the things you _can_ do?” Federico asked. 

“I...” Ezio groaned, ruffling at his hair as he paced the workshop, and finally leant against the wall to bang the back of his head against it with a huff of frustration. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” 

“Try us,” they both snapped at the same time before blinking and looking at one another.

“I... I had led multiple lives prior to being born into this place and time,” Ezio said slowly, swallowing. “The reason I knew what was on the Codex- as Leo so helpfully pointed out- was because I was the one who wrote it.”

“You- _you_ are Altaïr’s next life!?” Federico sputtered, eyes wide. Ezio’s widened just as far. 

“What do you mean, _next!?_ How do _you_ know about-“ he stopped, frowning. “Wait. That was supposed to be _your line_. When did this conversation get turned around?”

“Father has been teaching me Assassin history,” Federico explained quickly, pacing and gesticulating wildly with his hands in excitement. “As he was dying, Darim Ibn-La’Ahad charged the Brotherhood to watch for his father’s return. He said that his father had lived many lives, and that he would return someday. The Assassins have watched for the Eagle of Masyaf, but we always felt it would be someone of his blood. It’s why we have been calling the new Altaïr the ‘Eagle’s Kin.’”

“I want to get one thing straight,” Ezio interrupted. “I am not ‘the new Altaïr.’ I am Ezio, I am myself. It’s... difficult to explain. I’m simply me, but just... more. I have new memories.”

“Well, you’re not acting very much like your normal self right now.” 

“I’ve only just Awakened- eh... realized who and what I am and was. It jumbles my mind a bit, always does. I’ll be my old self with some very handy skills and knowledge in less than a week.” 

“...If you say so...”

-/\\-

Escaping the city limits of Florence were more difficult than they should have been due to Petruccio’s presence; if it had merely been Ezio, Federico, and Giovanni, they would have been able to scale buildings and race across the rooftops. As it was a new plan to split up had been decided upon; Ezio had returned to Federico his Novice robes and donned an old cloak that Leonardo was keen to both get rid of and loan him. He was to take Petruccio through the streets with their elder brother and father keeping a watchful eye above. 

Ezio was good at what he did, and with his dirty old cloak he blended easily with the field workers leaving to tend their farm plots. It had been decided that they would wait for the morning to take advantage of such an opportunity, leaving the workshop at dawn after Leonardo had sent word to Anetta to prepare Claudia and Maria for the journey. They were to meet at an abandoned vineyard on the road toward Monterrigioni, and despite any present anxieties biding their time for the perfect escape had paid off. They met no resistance on their way out, and Petruccio was soon running into the sobbing embrace of his relieved mother.

They met resistance with the walls of Monteriggioni in sight, so close to their objective, and Ezio growled softly under his breath as Vieri sauntered toward them. A group of Pazzi supporters were behind him, all of them well-armed, and of the Auditore lot only Giovanni was armed with a sword. Federico had a dagger, but... well. 

So it was that Ezio took the initiative, using the advantage of surprise to launch himself airborne and perform a perfect aerial assassination on the nearest target. Vieri let out a shriek at the display and clumsily went for his sword, chaos erupting as Giovanni and Federico placed themselves solidly between Claudia and Maria, who were courageously shielding Petruccio between them. Ezio stayed on the outer edges of the fight, flanking their enemies and dealing quick brutal strikes with his hidden blades before abruptly withdrawing again. 

Throwing knives embedded themselves with deadly accuracy in his intended victims, and when the thundering of horses’ hooves came from Monteriggioni with reinforcements for the Assassins Vieri turned tail and ran leaving his men behind.

The lead horseman came to a halt and reigned in his mount, surveying the carnage approvingly. 

“Always good for a scrap, eh Giovanni?” He called. Giovanni laughed, relief etched into the very essence of his being as his brother Mario dismounted and walked toward them. “These cannot be your children. How long has it been since the last visit?”

“Too long my brother, too long,” Giovanni sighed, accepting the bear hug embrace gratefully. 

“So I see,” Mario commented observantly, kicking the boot of one of the fallen Pazzi followers. “If Ezio has already mastered his blade work as I witnessed.” 

“He’s what you could call a natural prodigy,” Federico replied cheekily, smirking when Ezio glared at him. “He is far ahead of my own mastery despite starting later.”

“Indeed? Well, then Ezio, know that your Uncle Mario will watch your career with interest.” 

The smile was genuine enough, but there was a contemplative seriousness it masked that was exchanged in a glance between Mario and Giovanni when he turned away and, grabbing the reigns of his mount, led them on foot toward Monteriggioni and safety. 

“You need to be more careful if you want to remain undiscovered,” Federico hissed as he walked beside Ezio. “Our father and Uncle have made it their mission to find the Eagle’s Kin. I can only play off your skills to a certain extent, and Leonardo can only transcribe so many Codex pages before they become suspicious of how easily the contents come to you.”

“I know,” Ezio whispered back out of the corner of his mouth. “I just need to settle.” He swallowed. “Truth be told, Federico, I’m not sure it’s plausible to keep pretending anyway.”

“Father wouldn’t know what to do with you if he found out. He’s always been taught, always believed, that he would find Altaïr himself reborn, not...” 

“Ataïr’s spirit living on in the heart and mind of someone entirely their own person,” Ezio concluded, sighing. “I understand.”

“Just... be careful, Ezio. Uncle Mario is more open-minded, but father...”

“I’ll try.” A moment of silence lapsed between them before Federico snickered. “What?”

“One thing’s for certain, baby brother.” 

“And that is...?” Ezio huffed. 

“You’re definitely not cut out to be a banker.” It took a few seconds, but eventually Ezio burst out laughing, Federico joining him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Arqid fi salam - (Arabic) Rest in Peace 
> 
> Disclaimer: I want it to be known that I used Google Translate for this statement and that I do not speak Arabic. However, if there is a better translation (or more culturally-appropriate phrase that has the same connotations), I am perfectly willing to alter the text to be more accurate with full credit for the person who corrected me. In short, I acknowledge my lack of understanding and wish to be more correct, and am willing to admit my mistake and fix my errors. 


	7. The Jackdaw

The ship had been dark, sheets of rain driving down as they rocked violently on tall and choppy waves. Edward had been in the middle of a particularly nasty fight with a shipman of the opposing side, cursing his captain for deciding to try and perform a raid in such weather when they were usually hunkered down hoping they didn’t wake up to greet Davy Jones, and out of the corner of his eye he had seen a shadow flitting about in the rigging. 

The shadow had leapt, there had been an explosion, and when Edward came to he was lying among a quite frankly impressive amount of flotsam on a beach somewhere remarkably unscathed save for a pounding headache and ringing in his ears. The shadow from the ship was a man staggering toward the tree line clutching at his belly, and something about the cowl clicked in Edward’s mind. He scrambled to his feet and followed, they fought, the man known as Duncan Walpole died... and he had the great fortune of running into Stede Bonnet. 

Reading through the stationary that had come with Walpole’s pouch, something like unease and disgust made it’s way to the forefront of his opinion on the man. Then came the empty cube, the precursor tech...

That was enough to trigger an influx of past memories, those prior to Renaissance Italy faded just as he had come to expect them to, and his disgust for Walpole grew ever more. 

“Traitor,” he snarled under his breath. He’d infiltrate the Templar stronghold of the Caribbean in Havana and then bring whatever information he collected to the Assassins.

...As soon as he found them, that is. 

-/\\-

“Why do you want to find the Observatory, Kenway?” James Kidd asked, leaning against a palm tree. Edward blinked, eyeing him over and raising an eyebrow. 

“Because I do, Kidd,” he retorted, crossing his arms. “What’s it to you?”

“You could say I have a... vested interest in it.”

“Because you’re an Assassin?” Kidd took a step backward, clearly startled, and Edward shrugged with a sigh. 

Things with the Templars had gone... poorly. 

For starters, he’d run into a snag. Even though he knew everything there was about Assassins and knew how to disguise himself for most every occasion - he’d even gone so far as to clean, repair, and personalize Walpole’s hidden blades to his own tastes to get them working again and had the robes tailored to his liking as well - a few members of the party had still seemed suspicious of him. Things had gone from tenuous to horrible when he’d had his first encounter with a Sage.

A decade of millennia later, and he and Aita had still recognized what lay within the other. Their startled reactions had marked Edward immediately as Eagle’s Kin, which meant he would never willingly side with Templars, and he’d run for his life only to be caught and deposited on a prison ship amongst the Spanish fleet. The encounter had gained him the amazing talents of Adéwalé for a first mate - as well as a more than willing pupil of the Assassin ways - a crew of prisoners they’d freed - and the _Jackdaw_ , which was a small but fast and formidable ship that he was proud to call his own. 

How had it never occurred- well. He’d been dead by the time Juno would have experimented one her precious Aita. It was still a shock. For Aita as well; it seemed that he’d never considered that the first experiment had been a success... 

...had he been the first? If so, how many had come after? Was it possible there were more successful cases than just the pair of them, old spirits in new bodies throughout the centuries? 

The cases seemed different. While Edward was very much still himself, just... more, as it were, with the knowledge of past lives behind him, Aita seemed to be pressing his own personality onto the subconscious of another living and sentient individual. The Sage had seemed very much himself until they had locked eyes on each other - Edward himself had had very vivid flashes of his life as a small child in Atlantis - male, he finally remembered after four prior lives living without that tiny little tidbit - that he’d never dreamt of before. 

But it did beg the question. How many others? How-

“Kenway!” Kidd snapped again, this time also snapping his fingers in front of his face. He jerked backward.

“Did you say something?” Kidd gaped at him. 

“Only for the past five minutes,” he said slowly. “What had you so deep in thought that you didn’t hear a single word I said?”

“Life, past lives... Sages.” Edward blew out a breath. “That was a shock. I thought I was the only one. Now I learn the man who made me the way I am suffers the same affliction.”

“Eagle’s Kin,” Kidd whispered in sudden understanding, awe inflecting his tone. He swallowed. “I have to bring you to my Mentor.”

“As you should, I suppose. Well, come on then. Give me a fortnight to get my crew in shape to follow you, and we’ll be off.” He blinked at the strange expression with which he was being regarded. “What?”

“You staying for good then? With us?”

“The Assassins are my family, Kidd. Literally. Darius was once my father-in-law, and I co-founded the Brotherhood with Amunet, who was once my wife. Where else would I go?” 

“You have a ship. You were born outside the Brotherhood for the first time in... ever, it seems. Seems to me you could do whatever you want.”

“We both know I’m born into the world when the Assassins need me most,” Edward sighed. Kidd winced but gave a nod, conceding the point. They began walking along the beach of Nassau toward Anne Bonny’s pub. “I have a responsibility toward the Brotherhood in my very blood. It’s true that I would have sought fame and fortune had I not remembered my past, Kidd. But I have.” 

As they drew nearer, raucous singing had reached the chorus of a popular drinking song. Edward smirked.

“And who says I can’t get that along the way, eh? It could take years sailing the seven seas to find that Observatory. Why can’t I take a few bounties while I’m at it?”

“ _Now_ you’re talking my kind of language,” Kidd chuckled.


	8. Ratonhnaké:ton

Ratonhnaké:ton paused at the top of the valley edge and peered down into the land of his childhood, sighing. He was torn; on the one hand, he was reluctant to leave the Kanien’kehá:ka, his people, but he was returning to his _other_ people.

Hearing Juno’s voice had violently awakened his past lives, including that of his own grandfather Edward Kenway. He had been terrified during his vision quest, struggling against her but unable to break free, and she had seemed oblivious to his true nature. He had been left shaking in terror with the symbol of the Assassins drawn in the sand in front of him, and he had wasted no time in getting as far as possible from the Isu artifact. 

Even more disturbing was the knowledge that, underneath the valley of his homeland, the Grand Temple lay buried as a tomb to the failure of Isu ingenuity. The place of his first death, where he had been made into a creature belonging to multiple lives. The very soil felt cursed afterwards, and Ratonhnaké:ton’s muscles only began to untense from their anxious state the further he got from it. He remembered quite vividly where the North American headquarters were located, having visited it mere decades earlier, and his steps were sure-footed as he walked the paths. Not that he knew how to walk there having sailed on prior occasions, but the general direction. 

His steps slowed as he approached the compound, a sinking feeling engulfing him as surely as the derelict state and absolute silence did. 

This had once been a bustling place with Assassins actively training in the forests and rivers nearby, bedding down at night in the barracks and communing in and around the main house where the active Mentor resided and all intelligence was gathered and deciphered. 

The strength of the Brotherhood in Colonial America had been unparalleled compared to the ever-present struggles they had in Europe. Those that had initially ventured forth had been looking for freedom from the Old World, Assassins first and foremost amongst these, and they had found sympathizers in the native peoples that had lived there. Tensions had been strained as the colonists encroached on their land, but when the Templars had made their late but inevitable entrance relations had smoothed out again. 

Now... now it was empty. Ratonhnaké:ton drew a deep breath and walked to the back door. He remembered the old passcode knock that Achilles had instituted and went through said knock, all the while pondering what he was to do if Achilles was no longer alive. If no one lived here anymore, or worse, it had become a Templar hold. What if-

“Go away!” Achilles shouted from the other side of the door. “I don’t care who taught you that code, I’m not taking new trainees!”

“I’m the Grandson of Edward Kenway!” Ratonhnaké:ton called. “I need no training, merely direction!” There was a shuffling sound as Achilles drew back the bolt on the door and opened it a crack, then opened it wider when he took in his visitor’s appearance.

“Tell me, _boy_ , why you think you need no training?” Achilles asked, something of a sneer on a face that had not appeared as broken as Ratonhnaké:ton remembered it being. He hadn’t visited more than a handful of times, but... 

“My grandfather and I share far more than just blood,” he answered meaningfully. He waited for comprehension to dawn and was not disappointed when Achilles’ eyes widened. “You understand, then, what is to happen here.”

“You’re here to rebuild our Brotherhood,” the elder man sighed resignedly. He beckoned for Ratonhnaké:ton to follow him inside - which looked little better than the outside - and they moved toward the kitchen. Achilles had been making his evening meal. “I can tell you right now, this isn’t the time for it. The Templar threat is stronger than ever. Led by _your father_ , might I add.” 

“Charles Lee was there when my village burned and my mother died,” Ratonhnaké:ton muttered, leaning against the counter. “So believe me, I _do_ understand. I _also_ remember my father being witness to the death of my grandfather. _Vividly_. So forgive me if I harbor some latent sympathy. But I’ve done the work before, and I will do it again. This will be a thriving place once more.”

“You speak of experience but are blinded by the optimism of your new youth,” Achilles sighed, slumping in his seat. “Your father is the one that crippled me, after a former student tore us apart from the outside using skills garnered within. We were blindsided.” His head dropped forward. “My students did not deserve what happened. The fallout of the mistake made was mine to bear, yet here I sit in this decrepit house alone mourning their young, early graves.”

“Then atone for it,” Ratonhnaké:ton suggested, voice serious and entirely business. “I have been separated from the Assassins for many years, and the technology of the time has outpaced me. Show me what is new, and I will work from there.” 

“What do I call you then, if we’re working together?” 

“Ratonhnaké:ton.” 

“...Right... well, I’ll never remember that. You’ll need a more colonial sounding name-“

“I have lived too long to accept the labels of others,” Ratonhnaké:ton murmured darkly. “Call me Kenway, then, if not my true title. I am one, after all. And in another life I had become used to being addressed by it.” 

For the first time, a glimmer of interest sparked in Achilles’ eyes. He sat up in his seat, holding Ratonhnaké:ton’s gaze without wavering, before his face split into a small and broken smile.

“Very well... Kenway. Let’s begin.” 


	9. The Boy With the Broken Watch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, Connor and Arno existed at the same time. But so did John Standish (modern Sage AC IV: Black Flag) and Elijah Miles, so obviously Ubisoft isn’t too concerned about that. I decided not to be either, and there are no documented meetings between the pair in the canonicity of the game series. I did warn that this was pretty much fix-it fic with a loose plot, guys. 

When Arno had come to live with them, Élise had initially thought that this meant she would have a special playmate specifically all to herself. He had been so playful and fun in the palace after all, stealing that apple just because she’d dared him to, but this was not the case. 

After his father had died, Arno had become incredibly quiet and reflective. It was as if he had lived entire lives before when you looked into his eyes, the weight of centuries reflected in the soft brown gaze of a young boy. When Élise practiced her swordsmanship, he tagged along. They’d come upon a wolf once along the path, and he had leapt upon it from the bushes lining the side with deadly accuracy. For a child so small, he knew just how to wrap his legs tightly around the creature’s neck whilst clamping its muzzle shut with his arms, all the while growling at it and mimicking its own sounds. When he’d sent it racing back the way it had come in fear for its life, he’d let out a short cry of triumph in a strange language neither Élise nor her mother had ever heard before. 

He had been allowed to accompany them to the training spot, where Mr. Weatherall had been surprised to find he had a new and unexpected pupil but acquiescing. Arno had further shocked the poor man when he had exhibited a natural proclivity toward the blade and proved by his footwork to be, at barely the age of seven, a master swordsman with elegant and precise footwork. 

His body simply seemed to flow with the movements, all of his focus centering in on how to maintain the edge in the fight and somehow remaining acutely aware of his surroundings the entire time. After one particular bout, he swept Weatherall’s legs from under him resulting in the adult to go crashing to the ground of the clearing they had been practicing in. Arno wasted no time in dropping squarely onto the man’s chest; Élise watched with rapt and curious confused fascination as Arno made an odd movement with his left arm and brought a splayed hand squarely against Weatherall’s carotid. 

Though the significance of the action had evaded Élise, it was by no means lost on her mother or Weatherall, the usually-stoic seasoned British Templar who had shouted in genuine terror at the movement before realizing there was nothing to actually fear. 

Shortly afterward, Élise’s father had taken her aside and told her of the Templar/Assassin war. They were Templars, and Arno was the son of an Assassin. They provided further more shocking information over the course of several book studies on their Order’s history, taking great care to point out a handful of people that the Templar Order called Phoenixes. Unlike Sages, these people were endowed strictly with the memories of prior Assassins and always found their way back to the Assassins’ Brotherhood one way or another. 

As Élise and Arno grew, she began to understand. The boy who played and studied with her was a Phoenix, and witnessing his father’s death had triggered something deep within him. While Arno had grown out of his somber and pensive attitude, smiling and joking and in general gradually starting to act as a boy his age was expected to, he always maintained this odd sort of awareness of who and what he was. He gave no indication that he knew the De La Serres were Templars however, and seemed perfectly content to be raised and live among them. 

When Élise’s mother had died and she had been sent off to boarding school, Arno had continued to hone his skills. The holidays that she returned home were to increasingly find him perched upon a wall or - on one occasion - the roof of their home in Versailles, easily scaling even the steepest of sheer surfaces by finding hidden nooks and crannies with which to secure a grip. He was already an Assassin in skill and mentality, really... Élise’s father, as Templar Grandmaster, had seen a potential opportunity early on when Arno was young to bring him into the Templar fold, even going so far as to contemplate allowing Shay Patrick Cormac license to train the boy in the ways of the Assassins with Templar ideals recognizing that Shay would better understand how to handle the problem of Arno being a Phoenix, but after the first session at the boarding school Élise quite clearly saw that that idea had been discarded with some annoyed but resigned grumbling. 

The fact was that trying to change the nature of a Phoenix was impossible, what with memories of being raised an Assassin in multiple lifetimes so prominent in Arno’s head, and he had resolved instead to hide the true nature of their Templar ties as best he could - which meant swearing Élise to secrecy in order to keep the most important aspects of her family from her best friend and their ward. But it had been deemed necessary, and so it was done.

-/\\-

Bellec wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Charles Dorian’s boy. He’d been thrown into the same cell of the Bastille as Bellec for the murder of De La Serre, but the accusation was met by Arno with a calm and determined mentality. He had quietly explained, when asked what had happened, that he had raced to save Monsieur De La Serre and had been just in time to witness the murder. Torn between catching the killers and making sure the man who had raised him was at peace when he died, Arno had stayed behind. 

It had been Élise’s induction into the Templar Order, he had said. They had thought they’d hidden that part of themselves from him, unaware that he had known from the very start. 

The fact of the matter was that Arno was only twelve years younger than Ratonhnaké:ton was, and despite existing in the same time and place Arno had been born after and was the next in the lineup. He remembered, vaguely through his past life’s memories - and he had lived long and had a peaceful ending in that life - that France was to undergo a brutal revolution fairly soon, and had known that since his Awakening when witnessing his father’s death. Knowing that the entire country was to be torn apart by blood and war, he had honed his skills from the earliest of ages to be ready for the storm when it came. 

Being thrown in the Bastille was not on his agenda, but it seemed Providence had led him to Bellec, his in into the Assassin’s Brotherhood. Bellec himself was as yet unaware of Arno’s... uniqueness, and if Arno had his way he would keep that as quiet as possible. 

The Kenways hadn’t minded flaunting their status as Eagle’s Kin, but Arno was more cautious. When the mob were already walking down the streets with torches and pitchforks, it wouldn’t do to give them a target with abilities that resembled a strange sort of witchcraft to burn him at the stake. It was bad enough he hadn’t been as careful as a child and had alerted the Templars that he was Eagle’s Kin - or as they called him, a Phoenix. Both sides tended to regard him as a weapon when they knew, albeit in different ways; for the Assassins, the savior who would rebuild the Brotherhood back to its former glory. For the Templars, an omen of ill tidings that would bring down death and ruin upon them. 

It didn’t help that both sides were one hundred percent correct in their assumptions. 

It was why he didn’t press when Bellec stole his father’s watch, merely stole it back the next evening and made no comment on it. The man was trying to find his limits, his breaking point. He just wasn’t willing to give him the satisfaction and instead focused on jotting down the symbols he could see with his Eagle Vision on the walls of the cell. Many of them were familiar and formed a pattern, and he was determined to figure out just what that was. 

This system seemed to be working quite well, until the Bastille was stormed... Bellec was eager to escape and seemed intent on dragging Arno with him, and Arno had no choice but to acquiesce. It was his only chance, he sensed, to properly join the Assassins, and anyone left in the cells would quite likely be the subject of either the aggression of the guards or the people. 

That meant... exercising certain skills that he’d rather have kept hidden. And Arno was intimately aware that Bellec was watching him like a hawk. Or an Eagle. Though, technically, that was his job... 

At any rate, being forced to take a Leap of Faith from the top of the Bastille and executing it flawlessly was the final nail in the proverbial coffin, because Bellec... 

They ran, Arno resignedly not seeing the point in hiding his talent any longer as they scaled buildings and sprinted over rooftops, before coming to a stop in front of the entrance to the sewers. 

“I think you know where we’re going,” Bellec panted, trying in vain to catch his breath. Arno inhaled deeply and sighed. 

“Yes.”

“Well... I won’t tell anybody if you won’t.” 

“I somehow doubt that,” Arno muttered. Bellec smirked.

“Not asking you to trust me, since I already know the secret, now am I?” 

“What do you want?” He snapped, retying his hair with the frayed piece of ribbon he used most often for such purposes. The movements were quick, jerky, and most definitely bad-tempered. 

“I owe your father my life, and I failed in my promise to look after you if something happened to ‘im,” Bellec sighed. “Just askin’ if I can have the opportunity to train you up to modern standards, watch after your career. And, think about it, but if you want to keep things under wraps you’ll need someone to train you who won’t ask questions.”

“Starting to wonder if it’s worth it, Bellec.” Arno folded his arms with a frown. “I’m not in the habit of following the orders of men who steal other men’s watches hoping to get a rise out of them.”

“Nor drunks, vagabonds...” Bellec held up a finger and pretended to think. “Let me see if I’ve got this right... Pirates, courtesans, thieves, or mercenaries.” 

“No, I just make friends with them.” Arno’s frown turned into a scowl. “A status which _you_ haven’t earned yet. I’m willing to give you the opportunity, so long as you understand that I don’t need a father figure. Or a mentor.”

“Well, I’m not willing to be either, so you’ve got yourself a deal.” Bellec held his hand out in an offering of truce that Arno clasped as a show of acceptance. The elder man smiled at him as he strode into the sewer, pushing open an iron gate with flourish. “Time to return to the shadows.” 


	10. The Rooks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a really hard time figuring out which twin I wanted to use for this, but I eventually settled on Evie. She is more of a scholar and natural leader, while Jacob is more of a troublemaker. Either would have worked well, but Evie’s interest in the Isu artifacts sold it for me. Of the two twins I prefer playing as Jacob (simply because his outfit resembles the traditional Assassin garb on a more consistent basis than Evie’s), but for this story line Evie is the one that makes the most sense. As she was also the only main playable protagonist in the Jack the Ripper DLC I somewhat see her as the more dominant storyline.

“I still can’t believe we’re in the Kenway house,” Henry hummed happily as he tapped experimentally at the piano. 

He and Evie had followed the clues to this location, trying to ascertain the location of the Shroud of Eden, and Evie was debating whether or not to...

“Let me,” she huffed impatiently, quickly tapping out the hidden musical key she’d installed several lives ago into the piano. The secret entrance in the floor promptly opened, but with Templars about she wasn’t keen on lingering. All but dragging a startled Henry down the steps, she pulled hard on the release lever down at the bottom. The entrance quickly sealed itself behind them, and without further preamble she began rifling through all of the journals left to collect dust. 

“You seem to know your way around this place very easily,” Henry commented. It was a leading statement, one that invited an answer to the unspoken question, and Evie’s hands stilled in their busy work before she took a deep breath and turned to face him. 

“I’m the one who built it, and who hid these items here,” she explained honestly, watching the surprise and confusion light up his handsome features. “I... Kenway was Eagle’s Kin. And so am I.” This pronouncement produced a simple blink of acknowledgement, Henry stuttering slightly as he processed and replied.

“I- does Jacob know?”

“Why do you think he keeps telling me that the Shroud is my obsession?” Evie asked dryly. “He’s known since the very start. As much as we quarrel, we’ve never had cause to hide the truth from one another.”

“He has very little tolerance for your antics compared to the tolerance you show toward his,” Henry pointed out. 

“Yes, well.” She chuckled. “Edward Kenway and Jacob Frye would have very much been kindred spirits. I suppose... I see who I used to be in him and am nostalgically-fond. I don’t mind him forming the Rooks; truth be told it sometimes feels like I’m back in Nassau when I’m in the middle of all of them. It’s a... very pleasant experience, actually.” 

“How much do you... do you remember?”

“Well, memories fade with time, and I have lived two lives between being Kenway and myself. I mostly get feelings, faded washed out dreams that slip away when I wake. But I remember his death very clearly. That, and the death of my very first life. They were both incredibly traumatic. The other lives I have lived had peaceful, unremarkable deaths, something I am grateful for. It is rare for Assassins to have a long and peaceful life when they only have one. Try having several and attempting to reach old age in every single one.”

“Sounds... exhausting,” Henry remarked, amusement finally making its way into the conversation. He was - slowly, very slowly - coming to terms with the idea of Evie being Eagle’s Kin, but it was obvious that he’d need time. Evie was willing to give him all the time he needed. After all, it was a lot to take in, and they both knew there was something unspoken between them.


	11. Subject 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> END PART I
> 
> Reminder: no idea when updates will come, but I’m not done with this. 

Desmond had always been different than the other children, and quite honestly that wouldn’t have bothered him if he wasn’t unique for his own personal control group.

What that meant was that he had been _born_ with the memories of his past lives, and he remembered each and every single one with eidetic crystal clarity. Where his other selves would have an Awakening and then a Settling period where they processed faded and murky memories, the first seven years of Desmond’s life were spent with him being entirely mute. His Settling period required sorting out the multiple different conflicting personalities, generally taking tiny snips from all of them and throwing them into a melting pot with whatever his personality would have tended toward developing on his own without interference.

The overall effect was that it all coalesced into his final, stable persona. 

Both of his parents were outright shocked when out of the blue he began speaking in full, clear, concise sentences that were more akin to an adult comprehension level than that of a seven year old. His literacy was on par with an academic, and he was entirely fluent in a multitude of languages that he’d never actually been exposed to before. Whenever he had a history lesson he ended up correcting the instructor and, when the instructor went to prove their point, they were always disappointed to find that Desmond had been correct. 

The thing was, Kassandra had been made functionally immortal by the Staff of Hermes and had lived an extra four hundred years or so before handing it over to Gaius Cassius in Macedonia, sensing a true ally who understood the importance of keeping a watchful eye over the world. It was one of the few instances in her life where she had felt the Pull to do something, some unknown sense guiding her actions. Giving up the Staff had been an easy decision after four centuries of isolated loneliness, and Cassius had proven to be a true ally to the young Brotherhood the Order of the Hidden Ones, that she had seen her second life co-found. Of those four hundred years, things were very hazy. Not at all crisp and clear like the rest of his memories.

...He also couldn’t remember his time as an Isu either, but then he never had been able to, so that wasn’t too troubling...

Still, at the end when it all came down to it, due to Kassandra’s vast life and the supplementary existences of his other past selves, Desmond was basically an ancient immortal trapped in the body of a small child and in general he acted like it. It wasn’t his intention to stand out among the other children on the Farm, and as a result it made his childhood a very lonely one. Coupled with his father not tolerating obstinance, defiance, or outright disobeyal of his policies and rules - and the stern... ‘punishments’ he received as a result of these perceived and unintentional slights - and he was outright miserable on the Farm.

By the time he finally managed to form his own dominant personality and actively sought to connect with the other kids his own age, none of them wanted to have anything to do with him. The adults found him strange - and to a certain level disturbing - and left him be as well. His mother was the only one that attempted to connect with him, and even that was strained because he had been so self-isolating in his formative years. Not by choice of course, but it meant that she had trouble connecting to her own son and he to his own mother. 

Additional insult to injury was that these were not the Assassins as he remembered them. Children were isolated in compounds to train, separating them from the world they were supposed to blend into so totally that none could expect to visit the nearest town until well after their eighteenth birthday, and for the most part the old texts weren’t taught as example of either mistake or success. 

When he was Sixteen, he’d had enough. One night, he packed a few provisions on the fly and left. 

No one had the skill to track him. He’d had centuries - two millennia really - to hone his natural talents into proper executable weapons. The field training he had been made to endure ensured he was in peak physical health, and it was summer. He could survive indefinitely in the wilderness with nothing more than a pocket knife and his wits if he had to, used to crafting his own makeshift weapons and shelters. 

For the first time in the entirety of his collective lives, an Eagle’s Kin voluntarily walked away from the Assassin’s Brotherhood. 

-/\\-

_ September, 2012_

Turning twenty-five and staying off of any and all grids, successfully, for nine years was, in Desmond’s opinion, a legendary achievement. Especially since he’d broken his wrist at a construction job a little over four months ago and he’d had to get it fixed. 

Finding work that didn’t deal with scaling the support beams of skeletal work in progress high rises was harder than he had anticipated when it came down to it, but the job as bartender at Bad Weather - a suspiciously-posh looking club on Manhattan’s Lower East Side where he was required to wear a nice set of dress slacks and shirt - was a pretty good gig. It paid the rent for a decent apartment. 

And by decent, he was referring to the two bedroom he shared with three other guys that necessitated the loft bed he slept in. New York City rent was nothing to sneeze at, no sir. 

But his cast had finally come off, he’d done several strengthening exercises to get it back in literal fighting shape, and tonight he would be the lead bartender for an expense party coming in because his mixologist mentor was paying homage to the porcelain god and patron of food poisoning. That meant a serious bump in pay for the evening, and if the clientele had as deep pockets as he suspected they did he could garner some amazing tips with his vast array of party tricks.

Assassin reflexes, natural talent as a quick study, an innate sense of what tasted good and what didn’t due to centuries of suffering through bad alchohol... well. Everything was coming up ‘Desmond’ for the night. 

Hence the reason he had been strolling through the streets with a dry cleaning bag. He had exactly one _really really_ nice shirt and slacks that he saved for extra special occasions, and tonight was the night. Pick up the dry cleaning, check. Water the plant that belonged to his roommate that the man always forgot to water? Check. Shave? Hmm... 

Did he need to? 

Desmond had adopted the ‘Altaïr Look’ as he called it, which meant that he kept his unruly curly very dark brown hair just long enough to be tufty - and thus fluffy - without being an unmanageable mess of tangles. He also had an extremely thin goatee and stubble on his jawline, which he felt pulled everything together nicely. It made it seem like he had his life in order, but only just enough to get by. 

Yeah. That would be fine. He’d shave tomorrow; his jaw always looked better with a little stubble. Offset the tufty hair so that he didn’t look like he was twelve. Yeah. That would be good.

...His past selves would be laughing at him if they could see how nervous he was over being presentable for a _civilian job_ , but Desmond _was_ nervous. The problem with being an Assassin your entire existence or off on an adventure roaming the high seas for the vast portion of it before your Awakening was that it didn’t develop practical civilian skills, and it showed. 

Badly. If he could just-

A taxi sped around the corner and threw a tidal wave of mud from a pothole puddle - courtesy of last night’s rain - toward him as he waited for a safe crossing at the curb, and without a second thought he was leaping in an arc backward from the spray, twisting midair so that he landed on his feet rather than his hands, the dry cleaning bag kept safe. There was a general shout of applause or surprise from the other pedestrians and he winced, knowing that such a movement wasn’t exactly low profile for a guy trying to go under the radar. Well. It was risk of discovery or the permanent ruining of the only really nice outfit he had. 

Roll of the dice. 

He made a point of slinking back home the rest of the way with his head down, shoulders hunched, completely indistinguishable from any other kid trying to make their way in the big city. Something small and light stung the back of his neck, like a mosquito drilling down, and he felt anxiously for the small dart before finding it. Vision blurred and darkened as he fought to stay conscious and knew it was futile, the instinctive panic he felt at being drugged by someone with obviously-nefarious intentions toward him far outweighed by the unchecked _rage_ coursing through his body. He was angry, and he had a right to be. He’d been out of the fight for almost an entire decade, they should leave him alone already. But he was most angry with himself, for becoming complacent enough to fail to spot the attacker before it was too late.

-/\\-

Jerusalem’s Souk was wide open for business and Desmond hummed as he walked through the passerby, the sunshine bright and warm on the small portion of his face left unshaded by his cowl. He was dreamwalking through Altaïr’s memories tonight, then. Well, there were worse he could be dropped into. 

He smiled politely at those who smiled back, making no effort to hide that he was preoccupied, and Desmond idly wondered with painful but faded nostalgic longing if he would dream of seeing Maria tonight. 

Rich brunette hair braided elegantly on top of her head flashed in the sunlight, her form suffused with golden mist, and Desmond quickened his step in anticipation. 

Just to see her again... she had been more than his wife once, she had been a friend and confidante. An ally, an equal. And the only one who could cause Malik to curb his acidic tongue aside from Kadar. Not because she was sweet to him as Kadar was, oh no, but because she could out-barb him. 

Oh, but he missed everyone who died while he lived on, reborn into the next life and the next and the next... it was a pervasive ache that carried between them, and Desmond felt it accutely like a shard of glass wedged into his heart. He was alone to begin with, without a Brotherhood, without a family, and the crystal clarity of having been loved and having loved so deeply in return threw a sharp and bloody contrast in his face at all times.

_We’ve got a problem._

_I don’t_ see _a problem. The connection is stable._

_The Animus. It seems to think these are_ Desmond’s _memories, not Altaïr’s. It refuses to read it as genetic memory._

_Is the memory true, or a false positive?_

_...It’s true, that’s the strange thing-_

_Is the sync rate better or worse than when it read the memories the traditional way?_

_Better, but-_

_Then I don’t see what the problem is, Miss Stillman. Continue on._

Desmond froze. Those were _not_ the voices of his roommates filtering in from the waking world. The dream-memory around him distorted suddenly, the people becoming blocky and ill-defined as the buildings lost their vibrant color and the very sky seemed to glitch. He watched Maria disappear into the crowd and felt as if his heart had broken, and with that feeling he was suddenly thrown out of the dream entirely.

He came awake, lying flat on a strange metal table in the middle of an industrial penthouse office space, with his Eagle Vision showing quite clearly the walls and floors stained in symbols scrawled with blood. They glowed bright red with blue edges, which he had come to know meant a helpful message pertaining to something dangerous, and his head jerked upward so fast as he attempted to sit up that it slammed into a curved piece of clear fiberglass that had a litany of scientific data scrolling across it. 

“Where the _Hell_ am I!?” He shouted, eyes settling on a bright golden triangle sectioned into three separate parts.

_Abstergo. Templars._

_...Well... *cue swearing in a multitude of living and dead languages*_

“Settle down Mr. Miles,” the elder man said calmly. The first descriptive noun that came to mind when Desmond set eyes on him was ‘weasel.’ He had dark, tiny eyes behind a pair of glasses, mostly white steel grey hair and a short-cropped pepper-speckled snowy beard, and there seemed to be a permanent sadistic smirk resting on his thin mouth. The lab coat he wore over a dress shirt and tie had the personalized name Dr. Warren Vidic’ sewn over the breast pocket of the coat, several pens sticking out of it. 

He practically _bled_ crimson through Desmond’s Eagle Vision. The other person in the room - Miss Stillman as Vidic had called her - was different. Her aura was actually _purple_ , a color Desmond had never seen before. He’d seen blue as a facade over deep red, enemies among friends, or red as a facade over deep blue, friends hidden among enemies, but never _purple._ What did purple even _mean!?_

It was obviously a mix of blue and red, but there was no clear distinction. Maybe... an enemy with mixed feelings? Someone who could be brought over to his own side? Or was it the other way around, a friend who was being drawn toward the opposite side...

“My head hurts,” Desmond muttered, plopping down into one of the white arm hairs located next to the machine they’d hooked him into and groaning as he massaged his temples. “I just want to be left alone, from _everyone_. Is that so much to ask? Really? Is it that big a deal that Assassins and Templars alike won’t give me any peace?” 

“We’re all victims of ancestry Mr. Miles, myself included,” Vidic retorted acerbically, a tiny bit of resentment creeping into his tone. “So the answer to your question is ‘no.’”

“Fantastic.” He frowned. “Wait, ‘ancestry?’ I’m related to Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad?”

“Is there another reason you would have the ability to walk through his memories that we should concern ourselves with?”

“...Well, no, it’s just- you hear about him. He’s kind of a big deal. In the right social circles, of course.”

“Naturally.” Vidic rolled his eyes and cast a heavily-exasperated glance at Miss Stillman. “How long before the Animus is operational again?”

“I have no idea what the problem was,” Stillman admitted, frowning and biting worriedly at her lip as she ran through system diagnostics. “For all I know the thing could explode next time we start it up if I don’t isolate the issue.”

“Very well.” The good doctor appeared much put-upon by the delay. “Take the rest of the day to sort it out. Call in the analytics team if you have to. But we start tomorrow, no exceptions.” With that, he swept out of the room by jabbing his thumb on a fingerprint scanner to access the door. Desmond and Stillman were left alone.

...With fifty different security cameras, of course. There wasn’t a single part of the room that wasn’t covered in the light red haze of a camera’s field of view. 

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“So...”

“I’m Lucy Stillman.”

“Lucy. Okay. Thanks. Uh... what is that thing?”

“It’s called an Animus,” Lucy said patiently, pausing in her work to brush a strand of honey blonde hair behind her ear from where it had escaped the neat bun on the back of her head. Her light off-white dress shirt and grey pencil skirt are too clinical, to impractical, for her, he thinks. She seems uncomfortable in her thin heels and he remembers vividly Evie’s discomfort in Victorian footwear before she came upon a set of Indian heeled boots that she wore until the soles literally fell off, at which point she had them repaired and got another long use before the entire things split apart at every seam. 

“Gel inserts,” he said randomly. Lucy finally paused in what she was doing and gave him her full attention. 

“What?”

“Gel inserts. To help with your heels.” She blinked. “Anyway. What does the Animus do, exactly?” 

“Humans have genetic base memories locked and stored deep in their DNA,” she explained, giving him an odd look. The jump from talking about shoes to advanced tech had thrown her for a loop. “The experiences of our ancestors shaping our instincts.”

“And the Animus can access those by delving deep into a subject’s genetic base code,” Desmond summarized, frowning slightly. “Why was everything in the simulation spoken in modern English? A Jerusalem souk isn’t exactly a homogenous environment. There should be dozens of people shouting at one another in enough languages to make your head spin.”

“Yeah, well,” Lucy chuckled, despite herself, and folded her arms across her chest as she leant against the Animus. “Unless you’ve read Chaucer, I don’t think disabling the language filter is a good idea.”

“Chaucer was all right I guess,” he countered with a shrug, the smug smile on her face vanishing instantly. “I thought _Triolus and Criseyde_ was passable, but once you’ve read Homer the Trojan war can start to be overdone. Especially when Shakespeare did his own rendition of Chaucer’s work not two hundred years later. Or, you know, somewhere in that ballpark. I preferred Dante’s _Inferno_.” 

“In translated, updated versions, obviously,” Lucy suggested weakly. Desmond flashed her a grin that showed way too much of his canines to come off as anything other than predator rather than friendly. 

“No, original texts. They lose something in the translations.” He shrugged, standing and meandering causally toward the huge glass windows overlooking the city they were in. “But I think that’s how all timeless works go, really. Sun Tzu’s _The Art of War_ has a similar problem when applied to modern Western practices.” 

“And you’re trying to tell me that you got your hands on reprints in original formats,” she scoffed, uncomfortable. Desmond smirked. 

“Well, you know, there’s this revolutionary technology called a library card that I’ve got and it gives me access to the New York Public Library...” The joking barb did as he’d intended it to, and Lucy visibly relaxed, rolling her eyes. 

“And here I thought you had an underground job working as a courier for the Black Market Antique Books trade,” she muttered sarcastically. 

“Well, I mean, there was that too.” The brief good mood seemed to fade with his easy-going smile. “Lucy, why does Abstergo want Altaïr’s memories? Why go to all the trouble?”

“He hid something valuable a very long time ago,” she said easily. There was no point in denying him knowledge of something so simply obvious. 

“And now the Templars want it, and they wanted it bad enough that they dragged me all the way to Italy to get it out of me.” Lucy started. 

“How did you know-“

“Architecture.” Desmond shrugged. “Look, I’m still pretty beat. You know, after being drugged, kidnapped, and subjected to crazy experiments. I’m gonna crash, let you work on the Animus. See you tomorrow.”

“...See you.” She watched him go, uneasy, before turning back to her diagnostics scans only to all but jump out of her skin a few moments later when Desmond’s shout emanated from the room he was to be kept in at night.

_“Who the Hell murdered a sheep and painted the wall with it’s blood!?”_


	12. PART II

PART II - REMEDIATION

Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person 

you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.

\- Heath L. Buckmaster, _Box of Hair: A Fairy Tale_


	13. Altaïr’s Journey I: Consequences of Free Will

Hot dust blew in his face, stinging his eyes as blackness slowly formed blurry shapes and bright light beat down on his pounding head. What felt like a sword hilt was digging into some unmentionable places, and Altaïr jerked sharply to get away from the unpleasant feeling. He slipped off of what proved to be a precarious perch, and he came fully awake clutching in absolute terror to the edges of a saddle. He’d been laid across the back of a horse, and the horse was currently moving at a full gallop.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” a feminine voice teased. If he hadn’t have been trying to claw his way back up the horse and to relative safety, Altaïr would have frozen in place.

“Funny, but this is the third time I’ve met your acquaintance, and I still haven’t caught a name,” he snapped, heaving a sigh of relief as he finally managed to sit properly upright behind the mysterious Templar woman. 

“Maria. Maria Thorpe. Now, fair’s fair.”

“Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad.”

“You expect me to believe you are the ‘Son of No One?’”

“You speak Arabic,” he said with some surprise. They had been speaking in English.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Maria retorted, switching almost effortlessly into Arabic. 

“I can’t say where my grandfather derived his surname from, I’m afraid, only that I carry it with the honor and prestige my father bestowed upon it before he died. And yours?”

“Prestigious enough in its own right.” She huffed out a breath. “But here I am glad none know of it.” 

“Why did you save me?” Altaïr asked, tired of light chatting. “And how did you know that I needed it?”

“To answer the second question, I looked back. Call it Providence if you like, but you are a curiosity for me.”

“And you me.”

“I’m flattered. So, I looked back. I saw what your Master did.” There was a pause. “In answer to the first question, I owed a debt. You spared my life in the Temple when you didn’t have to. It was only fair I returned the favor, made us even.” She shook her shoulders slightly to reposition the lay of her chainmail. “I made the excuse that my horse had a loose shoe to separate myself from the rest of our forces, asked a local to show me the path to the river, and went searching. However. I’m not making any stops. If you want to get off here, in the middle of nowhere, be my guest. But I am heading toward Jerusalem.”

“Then it appears we will be traveling together for a while longer.” He swallowed. “Thank you, Maria. I... I am a man without a Creed right now.” 

“But not, it seems, without conscience.” 

“...Indeed.”

-/\\-

“How much?” Altaïr asked softly. He felt exposed with his hood down, a grey scarf draped loosely over his left shoulder and fanning out in a wide width down his back. He hadn’t found need to disguise himself since he had been Bayek, and as he had worn Assassin’s robes from the age of a small child he had never bothered to check in on the current fashions. 

That, and everything he _did_ see was entirely impractical for free running of any sort. 

The merchant was eyeing him up, trying to guess how much of an impressionable idiot he might be, and smirked slightly.

“Three dinar,” he said decisively. 

_“Three!?”_ Altaïr exclaimed, eyeing over the produce and wondering if some of them were actually made of gold. “These are _melons_ , sir! Worth at least one. Considering the poor shape of your produce, I would even hazard that they were worth only a half piece!”

“You forget that the Crusaders have destroyed much of the fields,” the merchant snapped, frowning. “Three pieces, or be on your way.”

“And how much for me?” A timbred voice asked smoothly. Altaïr stifled a groan as the merchant smiled and became much more congenial. 

“Ah, Malik. For you, a half piece.”

“Pleasure doing business, as always,” Malik said with a smirk, making a subtle motion for Altaïr to follow him.

“You don’t strike me as the bargaining type,” he grumbled. “So why does that merchant like you?” 

“In exchange for low price goods, I sneak information on black market goods that other vendors are selling to the city guards.” Malik shrugged. “He was the only one that sold the medicine I needed for Kadar, so we made a mutually beneficial arrangement.” There was a long pause as they made their way back toward the Bureau, Altaïr clutching his melon to his chest in case someone tried to steal it. “You’re supposed to be dead, executed as a traitor to the Brotherhood.”

“And my being alive means you have a choice to make.” Altaïr shrugged. “What will it be then, Malik?”

“I have questions, Altaïr. The man who exited that Temple was not the same one that entered in. I saw the change in you, I saw what it did to you. Even the way you walk and hold yourself is altered from what it was.”

“If I explain, Will you help me?” Malik stopped and turned to him, something like hurt flashing deep within his eyes.

“I would have done so regardless, my friend,” he whispered. There was definitely pain in his voice. “You saved my brother’s life and refused to leave either of us until we were certain he would pull through, even though you knew it would anger Al Mualim. I know I am an... _acerbic_ man, but nothing in this world means more to me than Kadar. You saved him. And for that I am proud to call you brother.”

“Malik...” Altaïr swallowed and began again. They had reached the Bureau, had climbed up and then down, and were standing in the atrium off to the side of the office space. “I have walked this world three times before being born to Umar and Maud. This body holds a spirit that has lived thrice before.” Malik’s eyes widened almost comically as his head tilted and he looked Altaïr over - standing there in all his clutching an overripe melon glory - and took a few steps backward.

“Say that again, but slowly,” Malik ordered. 

“I-“

“Altaïr!” Both Master Assassins were thrown off their feet and into the throw pillows as Kadar rammed into them, too over-excited for his own good. 

The melon, far too ripe, exploded everywhere. 

“So, let me get this straight,” Kadar murmured once Altaïr had explained his... rather unique... form of afterlife. “Al Mualim took the Artifact, which _you_ say and _have seen_ is a very powerful weapon capable of breaking the minds of men, and then had Abbas shoot you for treachery. You were then rescued by the scary Templar woman from the Temple and brought here.” He paused, licking melon juice from his fingers and grimacing as he leaned over and plucked a few bits from Malik’s hair. “And until that moment in the tunnels before facing Robert De Sablé, you were unaware that you had lived other lives.”

“I don’t understand how such a thing is even possible,” Malik sighed, leaning against the wall and letting the heat of the midday sun beat down through the screened and thus slightly shaded ceiling and warm him comfortingly. “It is not of our world.”

“No, it belongs to the world that came before the sun burned all to ashes,” Altaïr corrected. The Al Sayf brothers both glanced at the sun with squinted suspicion before refocusing their attentions on Altaïr. “As did my first life, which I cannot remember.”

“Who were you in your second?” Kadar asked eagerly. Even Malik failed to hide his immense interest. 

“I was a Spartan mercenary during the war between Sparta and Athens in Greece, over sixteen hundred years ago. I had a trireme and a crew, a first mate who loved me as a father should while my true one, the one that raised me as a child, threw me from Mount Taygetos. I met the acquaintance of Socrates, Plato. Hippocrates.” He chuckled fondly. “Herodotus took free passage sailing the Greek world aboard the _Adrestria_ , and I enjoyed hearing his stories.” 

“What of your second?” Malik inquired, no longer bothering to feign disinterest. Here Altaïr grew grim.

“I was the last Medjay of Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy II. I, along with my wife Aya, who would later be called Amunet, helped secure Cleopatra in allegiance with Caesar. It was then that we first learned of an Order called The Order of the Ancients, a precursor to the Templars we see today. I had met them in my previous life as a Spartan, but only briefly. In response to the threat, Amunet and I co-founded an Order called The Hidden Ones. Who would eventually become the Assassins Brotherhood.”

“You... you _founded_ our Order!?” The Al Sayfs were regarding him with open awe and Altaïr squirmed uncomfortably. 

“Well, yes. And I now believe that Robert De Sablé has turned from the Oath of the Knights to follow the Directive of the Order of the Ancients, recruiting people on both sides of the conflict to aid his goals. No matter their allegiance, they are all Templars. Not Knights Teutonic, but Templar all the same.”

“Why do we not know any of our history?” Malik demanded. 

“From what I can gather, the last Bureau located deep in the Sinai was burned completely to the ground over seventy years ago. Al Mualim was one of the few survivors and most highly ranked. They fled and came to Masyaf, where they overthrew those who had occupied the Keep before us and established a new Order with Al Mualim as the Master. They recruited a new generation of Hidden Ones and called them Assassins, burying our history under indoctrination.” Altaïr sighed, watching as Kadar’s mouth split wide in a yawn. 

“You need sleep, Kadar. You are not yet healed.” 

“Altaïr,” Kadar murmured reluctantly, standing and walking into the building proper. 

“We need proof,” Malik whispered fiercely once he was gone. 

“I suspect we may find it in the Temple, in the chamber with the Ark,” Altaïr whispered back. He stood, discarding his poor attempt at a disguise and raising his cowl. “Would you care to accompany me?”

“It would be my honor.” 

They flew over rooftops, Malik’s arm healing well and causing him few moments of aggravation when it would hitch going over a wall but otherwise behaving itself. The light of a full moon bathed everything in quicksilver as they raced toward the entrance they had used the first time on their way in. Off to the side sat the entrance to an antechamber, a candle burning inside of it. Exchanging curious glances, the two Assassins ventured closer and peered inside. The place looked... 

...Lived in. 

A cot, a table, some supplies. Journals and ink and papers. Numerous scrolls and ledgers. And-

“Finally showed up with a friend, Altaïr?” Maria asked cheekily from where she sat at the table, a journal in hand.

“Is this your place, Maria?” Altaïr retorted. Her good humor seemed to evaporate, expression darkening.

“No. It belongs to Robert. And this...” she hefted the journal for emphasis and tossed it at them. “This makes me ill.”

“Altaïr what you have told me, what you have speculated...” Malik murmured, leafing through the pages and paling as he got further in. “This is research and private accounts. It confirms what you have said. The Order of the Ancients live on and we, the Hidden Ones, are left broken.” He huffed an overwhelmed breath and leant against the table as Maria took the journal back and watched the pair converse with sharp interest. “What are we to do?”

“You’re going to tell me what is going on, and perhaps we can work together for the benefit of both our people,” Maria suggested in a tone that turned it into an order. “Yet you hesitate. Why?”

“You are the enemy,” Malik spat. “You have come to our land to take back what you claim is yours, yet do not stop with Jerusalem, a Holy City to more than just Christianity but to the Jews and Muslims as well. You come here, bringing death in your wake, and disturb what little peace we had managed before your arrival. Do you not also have enough wars in your own homeland? Why must you bring them to ours?” 

“I have seen Greece torn apart by a war between two rival kingdoms,” Altaïr said slowly, immediately drawing both of their attentions. “I have walked through plague-ridden Athens to the Spartan camps posted just outside. I have seen countless lesser kingdoms of Greece allied with the larger two, war coming to a place that had known peace in its independence. I have seen the Greek and the Roman fight over the once-proud land of Egypt, watched our temples and cities be ransacked by a greater and more vicious power. I carried Cleopatra into the palace to meet with Caesar in a carpet, hoping that she would bring peace to my home. I have watched it fall, and seen the Library of Alexandria burn.” 

His golden eyes, usually bright and sharp, were dull and dim with the weight of all he had seen. His shoulders slumped, his head hung, and for the first time Malik felt he could believe that Altaïr had lived hundreds of years in the sheer presence they made on his person in that moment. 

“War is the sport of the privileged, waged by the dispossessed, and felt by the innocent,” Altaïr whispered sadly. “I have had my fill of it, and it seems to be my undying curse.”

“Just how old _are_ you!?” Maria exclaimed. Both Assassins turned toward her, as if realizing she had been there the entire time.

“...How much time do you have?”

“Not much,” she admitted with a frown. “If Robert discovers us here...”

“Malik, there is a list of names, of conspirators,” Altaïr said quickly. “Copy them. Maria and I have to find a suitable location to discuss our plans going forward.”

“The old Bureau,” Malik said with a shrug as he pulled out a quill and dipped it in the ink well, pressing the tip to a blank piece of parchment. “It is useless to us since its discovery ten years ago, but it remains unoccupied by other people.” 

“I know where that is,” Maria said with a nod. “Now I must leave. Come with me, and explain as we walk.”

“I’ll see you later then,” Malik said as goodbye, raising an eyebrow. Altaïr shrugged and followed, trailing silently after her like a malevolent shadow.

Jerusalem’s former Assassin Bureau was, for lack of a better term, condemned. The roof was close to caving in and all sorts of creatures had nested inside what remained of the structure for shelter, resulting in a mess of multi-species feces scattered over upheaved or loose cobble flooring. The windows, which had been boarded up, let fierce winds through the cracks in the planks, and if one cared to recognize the signs they would see that much of the support frames covering the stone walls had been burnt along with the archives and secrets the place had once held in an unstoppable fire. Altaïr and Malik had been forced to “borrow” and bring in crates from the outside for seats and an empty barrel for a table, balancing a plank of wood precariously over top the barrel. Kadar had been left dozing peacefully in the Bureau, color finally returning to his cheeks as his health continued to improve.

“You did say that we would be meeting at sundown, yes?” Malik asked. “Or did your little story scare her off?”

“She seemed... curious, more than scared,” Altaïr reflected absently. “But we checked the time on at least three occasions before parting that evening. So yes, she should be here.”

“You like her.” It was a resigned statement more than an accusation.

“Beyond a professional sense, yes.” He shrugged. “She’s a very beautiful woman and despite her brash exterior she has a kind heart. She is smart and uses those wits in the way they deserve to be used, and above all she’s a free spirit-“

“So marry her then and spare me your fanciful adorations,” Malik grumbled, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I might then get some peace.”

“I don’t think I like her _quite_ like that, Malik. More that I admire her for her tenacity right now.” Altaïr was definitely amused. “And it’s not very proper. She’s a Templar and this is a business arrangement.”

“She also has an atrocious sense of time, apparently.”

“It’s not late if it’s fashionable,” Maria said, walking through the door and depositing a bag on the rickety table. “Literally. I had to find a suitable disguise. Wearing full armor in this part of town would not go unnoticed, and I would rather our rendezvous go unremarked.” She had a soft grey tunic on that covered a pair of black leggings halfway below the knee, well-kept leather boots covering them the rest of the way. A dark blue scarf was wrapped around her neck, a piece of it draped down her back while the rest covered her braided brunette bun. Even Malik was forced to admit that, out of her armor, she cut a striking figure with her dark brown eyes in a sun-tanned face. A face unadorned by any sort of paint, smudged with dirt actually, and she held herself like a warrior.

Stepping up toward the bag she had dropped, she pulled out several crumbling scrolls and and several sketched drawings.

“These were all I could get my hands on without alerting Robert,” she said matter of factly. “Not much in them.”

“Where exactly did he get these?” Altaïr asked, nodding toward the drawings. “They’re well-preserved.”

“Now how would you know that?”

“The Paper. It’s... Papyrus. It doesn’t do well in the cold and damp, but it is very old. It must have been stored in an arid underground environment... possibly sealed...”

“Robert made many trips to Cyprus over the past few months, he may have found them somewhere in the region on his travels. I truly do not know.” Maria shrugged.

“I may have to visit Cyprus when all this is done...”

“I never would have taken _you_ to be the bookish sort,” Malik commented, blinking. Altaïr winced.

“Yes, well... Al Mualim liked to keep me busy learning _other_ things. _Physical_ things. It’s easier to control a finely tuned weapon when they don’t know it is wise to ask too many questions.”

“Speaking of Al Mualim...” Maria began meaningfully, waiting for the two men to turn towards her. “This list is extensive. Nine names adorn it, nine conspirators aside from Al Mualim and Robert De Sablé. If we are to find solid footing to confront either of the two, we must first remove their support base.”

“And in doing so gather more information on their plans,” Malik mused. “It holds merit. But where shall we start?”

“They are weakest in Damas,” Altaïr mused. “The men profiteer through fear rather than force, and some have grown fat on the suffering of others.”

“I shall send word to the Rafiq of Damas then, that we might begin.”

“Can he be trusted?” Maria asked sharply. “If he’s supposed to be dead, at the hand of a man acting under orders from your Master-“

“He is no longer our Master,” Malik snapped. “Make no mistake of that. And yes, Yassir can be trusted. He is a good man with a kind soul, and more importantly he decides worth based on what he can see with his own eyes. Altaïr speaks true, and bringing him the evidence will convince him further. The more allies we gain the better.”

“Agreed,” Altaïr murmured, frowning in thought. “But unfortunately the evidence is underneath the Temple of Solomon, and Robert May suspect...” he smirked. “Maria, do you think you could station some observant but incredibly dense guards to patrol near the entrance to the tunnels? If I let them see me enter, they will chase after, and witness me stealing the journal. It will be easy to escape them if, say, one has trouble breathing or a bad knee but keeps quiet about it?” Maria grinned a predatory smile at him and even the edges of Malik’s lips curled slightly upward as he fought down a smile. She laughed.

“Oh, I like the way you think...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus can survive if well-preserved for thousands of years, though it deteriorates very quickly in moist environments such as Europe. Surviving Papyrus was found semi-recently in Egyptian dig sites that had been incredibly well-preserved.
> 
> Obviously, this story takes a similar yet very different direction to the events of the first game. Hope I don't disappoint!


	14. Ezio's Journey I: In the Shadows of the Greats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezio is feeling a tad over-looked and misunderstood... don’t worry, Murderboi. You’ll get your chance in the spotlight someday too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General Housekeeping note: Prior to the Ceremony, both Auditore brothers are wearing Renaissance Novice Robes (like the ones for the recruits in Brotherhood). Afterward, when you envision Ezio and Federico in this for the rest of the story, Federico is wearing Giovanni’s Robes because he is the eldest son. Picture Ezio in his Brotherhood Robes instead. This will be explained in the chapter but I wanted to give a heads-up.
> 
> Additionally, I had to actually open up my game just to run into the Sanctuary and stare at the Altaïr statue to see whether it had a scar or not. It did not.

“If you keep sitting there like that, Padre is definitely going to figure it out,” Federico laughed. Ezio looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow.

“And why is that?” His brother pointed at the looming statue of Altaïr, then to where Ezio was sitting on the floor with a candle in the statue’s shadow with his back pressed against the base. The only difference between himself and the statue, really, was the lack of the lip scar that they both in fact shared but had not been transferred into the stone medium. “Ah.”

“Is there a reason why you sit in the shadow cast by your previous self?” Federico asked, grunting ever so slightly as he sat beside him on the floor. Ezio sighed, marking the book and closing it.

“It’s an outward expression of how it sometimes feels to hear father speak with such awe about Altaïr, about the codex pages we find and the seals we’ve unearthed from the secret tombs. I wrote that codex, Federico. That armor, while not crafted by me, was made in my honor by our great grandfather.” He swallowed, then pointed to two of the other statues. “Darius, while they got his attire and blade entirely wrong, stands in this great hall. As does Amunet. And now, Altaïr. I am surrounded in my past here, Federico. And when father and Uncle Mario speak with such praise of Altaïr’s accomplishments, when... when they talk of his rebirth and expect him to be just as he was then, and they look right past me without _seeing me_...” His shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry, uccellino. I hadn’t realized it would affect you that way.” Federico frowned. “You know, we’ve accomplished quite a few things ourselves. Between the two of us, Uncle, and father, we’ve managed to collect all six seals in two years. Half of the Codex pages have been deciphered. And, just last week, we saved Lorenzo Medici and wiped out the last of the Pazzi for good.”

“Father was crippled in his left leg,” Ezio reminded him.

“And he has passed his Master Robes on to me.” Younger brother blinked and smiled at elder.

“Congratulations, Fratello. Master at twenty-two-“

“Far less impressive than Master at nineteen,” Federico interrupted with a smirk. Ezio stared at him.

“...Sorry?”

“That’s what I came down here to tell you. Father and Uncle Mario have decided that we’re both ready.” He snorted slightly. “No doubt due to the midnight training you’ve given Claudia and I to hone our skills. I can’t believe Father won’t let her train.”

“She’s a young woman,” Ezio sighed. “It’s lucky neither of us have a head for numbers, or he wouldn’t even let her balance the books... of course, now that he has to retire, he’ll probably take that over. Not that she’d go down without a fight, she’ll probably demand they work side by side.”

Claudia had an amazing head for numbers. She, like her elder brothers, was a prodigy in what she did, excelling and learning quickly the art of bookkeeping. She was a mathematician in the making, dedicated and organized. In the two years they had lived at Monteriggioni, she had taken the dead town and given it a new lease on life. Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, the fortress was now made new and clean and vibrant. Shops and bustling gardens were interspersed with a functioning church, mine, well, and barracks for Mario’s mercenaries as well as a guild for Volpe’s thieves. If some of Paola’s girls were being harassed in Florence, she would send them to the brothel in Monteriggioni where they could be certain that the city guards (Mario’s mercenaries) would keep them safe.

She had overheard Ezio and Federico discussing his secret, and in exchange for her silence she demanded to be trained as an Assassin. Not to become one, as she knew their father wouldn’t allow it, but so that she could defend her family if the Templars ever came knocking again. Neither brother had objected, nor had needed the incentive in the first place.

“So, you receive father’s Master Robes, adorned with the Armor plating, and I...?”

“Recieve Robes that I have fashioned from the material you spoke of in your Codex,” Leonardo said from the door, smiling. He held in his arms a long, thin crate. “I took the liberty of upgrading your Blades with the designs mentioned as well, and crafted a sword to match the kind you sketched. I thought it might make you... nostalgic.”

“It pays to have inventors as friends,” Federico laughed. Leonardo grimaced.

“Pays _you_ , maybe. I do this for free, though the cost to produce them was not cheap. In exchange I was hoping for free stay at the villa to paint some landscapes. Possibly even a place where I could continue my inventions? I like Firenze very much, but uh... well. The Medici may be fair in some ways and bloodily brutal in others, and every day they revoke new laws they had passed the day before. I felt it would be safer to take my leave for a while. Murder in the city is not to my tastes.”

“So you come to a city ruled by Assassins instead?” Ezio laughed, taking the case and opening it. He beamed as he pulled out the robes, letting them unfold and lightly brush the marbled floor. “Oh these are _wonderful_ , Leo. The material is twice as durable as leather, and half the weight. Smooth as silk and comfortable as cotton. It’s also- not to offend Federico- more to my tastes. Less... flamboyant. I would have worn father’s with pride, but the less ostentatious the better. Call it an echo of Altaïr within me, but I appreciate the elegant simplicity.”

“I did my best to model it after Altaïr’s robes whilst keeping the style modern to attract less attention,” Leonardo said honestly, squirming slightly under the glowing praise. “I... well, I was hoping that I might... be allowed to watch the ceremony? I might not be an Assassin myself, but I _have_ been decoding the Codex for you.”

“So that they don’t get suspicious of Ezio you mean,” Federico said with an exasperated eye roll, walking over to sling an arm over Leonardo’s shoulders. The pair, the same age separated by a matter of months, had become an odd sort of friends that had nothing in common aside from trying to get a rise out of Ezio. “We really need to check our fees on keeping this secret, Leo. What’s your hourly rate again?”

“It’s at a discount at the moment due to a truly wonderful art gallery,” Leonardo chuckled. “Your mother’s efforts, I take it? Not to offend, but the men of your family seem more... cerebral or physical rather than artistic.”

“Don’t tell Petruccio that, he’ll be heartbroken. He’s got his eye set on being the next great sculptor,” Ezio said absently as he hefted the replica sword and admired it.

“Really... I might have to take him on as my apprentice then. ...For, eh, educational purposes. He’s curious, from what I can tell. I enjoy speaking with him when his illness allows him out of the villa. What exactly was it, again?”

“Petruccio is allergic to nature and it sends him into an attack,” Federico sighed. “The doctors say that the muscles in his neck contract and restrict airflow, and that there is swelling of the throat. It was not so bad when he was younger, but after the Winter Fever... the water in his lungs, it made the symptoms worse.”

“Asthma, exacerbated by the Winter Fever,” Leonardo mused. “Most interesting. Not that I would use him as a test subject, but if he is gracious and allows I might study the effect seasonal patterns have upon his person. When he is older, mind. I would not subject a boy to such dangers.”

“I’m sure he would like that,” Claudia said smoothly from the steps as the men turned toward the sound of her voice. “Father was looking for the pair of you,” she added before primly spinning on her heel and sauntering back the way she had come.

“Your sister is growing into the spitting image of her mother,” Leonardo commented. “She is lucky. Though, I do not think there is a single ugly drop of blood in your ancestral line. It’s almost criminal, how all the men in your family manage to be so handsome and the women so beautiful.” He sighed. “If you weren’t hiding from persecution I would love to do some model work, or at the very least portrait sketches... criminal, you Auditore, the torture you put a well-meaning artist to...”

“If you can manage not to weep at the Adonis-like features of Uncle Mario-“ Ezio nudged Federico in the ribs as his brother started snickering- “then you can most definitely join us for the Ceremony.”

Leonardo brightened considerably.

-/\\-

_“Laa shay’a waqi’un moutlaq bale kouloun moumkine.”_ Giovanni grunted softly as he raised himself to a stand and leant heavily on his crutch, hobbling across the smooth stone balcony of Monteriggioni’s highest tower. “These are the words of our ancestors. The wisdom of our Creed is revealed through these words. Where other men blindly follow the truth, remember...”

“Nothing is true,” the brothers Auditore intoned at the same time. This was the first occasion for them to wear their Master Robes, the hoods down until the completion and establishment of rank.

“Where other men are limited by morality or law, remember...”

“Everything is permitted.”

“We work in the dark to serve the light,” Giovanni said softly, eyes shining with pride. “ _We_ are Assassins.”

“We are not commanded to action,” Ezio replied just as softly, clasping one hand over the other at the knuckle plate in a show of respect and submission. “Only to be wise.”

“Well said, Nipote,” Mario chuckled, clapping Giovanni on the shoulder as the other man blinked in surprise.

The others of their Order had traveled for the Ceremony; Volpe and Paola, who had aided Ezio’s hunting of the Pazzi across Tuscana and Firenze. Those from Venice that had aided Federico in his quest for the Codex and Seals were a thief named Angelo, a courtesan named Sister Theodora, and a mercenary named Bartolomeo.

What struck Ezio was how _small_ their Order was. Sure, their were other Bureaus in different parts of the world, but in Italy the spark was dying out. Was that why he had been reborn? He had been born to destroy the Kult of Kosmos, then to form the Hidden Ones in the first place to keep the Order of the Ancients in check. He had reconstituted their Order in the Crusades, and now?

...Was that his purpose, his lot in life? Would he be cursed to watch after the Assassins in every form, every existence, only showing up when it was close to collapse or some sort of faction-tipping catastrophic event? He couldn’t imagine doing anything else, but he hadn’t exactly been given the chance to _attempt_ to be anything else.

“It was a privilege to be present for this,” Leonardo whispered as Ezio and Federico pulled their hoods over their heads and stepped up toward the fire pit, bracing themselves for the heated tongs to mark them. “Thank you.”

“No my friend, it is _us_ that should be thanking _you_ for decoding the Codex,” Giovanni said in reply. He motioned for the inventor to follow him back down the steps. “Let us meet them back at the office. There are things to discuss.”

“Are they not coming with-“ Leonardo’s words were cut off as the other Assassins leapt from the tower into a hay cart below, Federico and Ezio following after them in the procession. “Oh. I get it now.”

“These Codex pages speak of a type of prophet a... well, a Messenger, who will appear when... ‘the second piece is brought to the floating city.’ Altaïr goes on to talk later in his Codex about his Successor, eh... ‘the one that holds my kindred soul in a form born anew.’” Giovanni looked up from the desk where the Codex pages sat. “Imagine it, Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad reborn. All that knowledge, that wisdom, that raw skill...”

“Mm, I think I’m getting a picture,” Federico sighed, rolling his eyes. His father fixed him with a look.

“Federico,” he chided. “Don’t disregard that which you haven’t seen with your own eyes. Nevertheless, my great grandfather felt that the Messenger and what he came to call the Eagle’s Kin, this kindred soul reborn, are one and the same. Find one, and you find the other.”

“A lot of responsibility to place on an unsuspecting man’s shoulders,” Ezio said carefully. “Even if it _is_ a man. It might be a woman.” Both Federico and Leonardo blinked at him and masked their surprise at that statement with a mutual raise of eyebrows, exchanging a quick look promising to table their questions for later. Above them, peering through the marbled rungs of the overhead balcony, Claudia and Petruccio watched with great interest.

“It’s a man,” Giovanni sighed, exasperated. “And the responsibility is hardly out of the realm of whatever else Altaïr is used to experiencing, now is it?”

“You assume that he is the exact same person, that his... _soul_ , has remained the same from life to life,” Ezio countered with a frown. “But what if it isn’t? What then?”

“Ezio...” Mario began uneasily. He made a surreptitious gesture for the other Assassins to leave the room so that they could resolve this family dispute without an audience, and respectfully the others withdrew. Tension was quickly building between Giovanni and Ezio and, when Leonardo went to step away, he was caught by the collar by Federico. _Stay_.

“How many years have you searched for this Kin of the Eagle, Padre?” Ezio asked tersely. “Maybe your obsession with them is why they have not approached you with the truth.”

“Or, as the Codex states, the time is not yet right for them to come forward,” Giovanni snapped. “Now I won’t argue any longer with you about this. I’m sending Federico back to Venice with Bartolomeo, Antonio, and Theodora. Hopefully we can build a field Bureau there. I need you back in San Gimignano hunting down the last of the Pazzi’s supporters. With my leg the way it is you have to take over the field work.”

“Fath-“

“ _End of discussion_ , Ezio.” He heaved a huge sigh and grumbled under his breath. “We have festivities to engage in this evening before you both leave tomorrow. If not for me, than for Monteriggioni, please. Present a unified front toward the people- and most especially the Brotherhood.”

“...Yes, Padre,” Ezio sighed, shoulders slumping. He shot a helpless look at Federico and Leonardo before stalking out of the room and down into the Sanctuary with the statues.

Ezio let out an angry shout as he threw his dagger at Altaïr’s statue, standing with shoulders slumped as the blade flew true and embedded itself into the statue’s face. With a heavy sigh, he stalked forward and climbed the base to pull the knife out.

The impact had left a deep but thin gash in the stonework - directly where their mutual scar was supposed to be. Ezio’s shoulders slumped further.

“Perfect,” he muttered sourly. “Now we resemble each other even more. Perfect. Just perfect.” He let the knife clatter harmlessly to the floor and paced before sitting with his back against the base of the statue, staring up into the hooded and marbled face of his past life. “Why did it have to be _me_ who came after you, Fratello? I’ve only ever been caught in your shadow. I feel like I’m choking on the expectations your written words have set for me, and no one even knows who I am yet. Is that all I am? A placeholder for someone else?

“Why isn’t it enough to just be me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uccellino - Italian, “Baby Bird.”
> 
> Petruccio’s illness was never properly addressed in the books, the short film, nor the games aside from the fact that the doctor had ordered bedrest and had pulled him from school, though Giovanni mentioned that he had a “weak constitution” shortly after his birth in a letter to Lorenzo. I realized I had to address it since he lived. 
> 
> If you are wondering what I was referring to when I described Petruccio’s illness, I described an asthma attack to some extent. The illness that he suffered which ruined his lungs when very very young and makes the asthma attacks worse is pneumonia. While Pneumonia symptoms were described as far back as Hippocrates, it would not even be properly diagnosed as an illness all to its own until the 19th century. It was known under many names, one of which was Winter Fever. Asthmatic symptoms have been recorded as far back as Pre-2000s BCE China and mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi, though the term itself was first coined by Hippocrates. Connections to allergies and other such now-general knowledge wouldn’t be properly uncovered until well into the late 18th century.
> 
> ...Hey kids, history is fun!


	15. Edward's Tale: The Edge of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you that have read Forsaken, I want to explain how things will go differently in Edward’s life. For those of you who have not read Forsaken, I’ll give a brief recap of the book for you.
> 
> In the book, Edward is killed when Haytham is ten years old - on his tenth birthday as a matter of fact, predawn hours of the morning - when Templars break into his house to steal a notebook. Jennifer Scott, his daughter by his first marriage, was kidnapped and spent much of her life as an unwilling Concubine in the Turkish Topkapi Palace before being rescued by Haytham long after. She had come to resent her father for not training her in the ways of the Assassins and for intending to marry her to Reginald Birch, his business associate (of like age mind) and who was known to him to be a Templar. Birch was the one who set the invasion of the Kenway house and had Edward killed, then took Haytham under his wing and trained him to be a Templar. We also know from Freedom Cry that Edward semi-retired from active Assassin life and gave the Jackdaw to the Assassins’ Brotherhood to use on missions.
> 
> In my version, Edward would never have become an associate of Birch due to his affiliations. He would never have tried to arrange a marriage for his daughter, nor refused to train her in the ways of the Assassins. Being Eagle’s Kin means he knows better than to trust a known enemy or to leave his child defenseless. As Eagle’s Kin, he would also have felt compelled to stay active in the Brotherhood, and wouldn’t have given up the Jackdaw as a result.
> 
> Why am I telling you all this now? Because it is very important for what you’re about to read without me going into an obscene amount of backstory beforehand. It also greatly impacts what happens with Ratonhnaké:ton in the next chapter. You’ll also receive another infodump like this one at the start of the next chapter detailing Haytham’s movements.

_ Philadelphia, 1747 _

Rain fell in ropes from the Heavens, a thick blanket of fog obscuring all. Beside him, his daughter Jennifer Scott-Kenway crouched with her peaked cowl hiding the fiery gleam of her bright red hair. Eyes as blue as the Caribbean, like her father’s, scanned the passerby of the port town with disinterest. Their target had fled, Haytham eagerly tearing after him through the downpour. A newly-minted Assassin who had just graduated from the rank of Initiate to Novice, he was eager to please his field mentor - his merciless elder sister - and the Mentor of the English Brotherhood - his father.

Edward sat proudly beside his graduated daughter in the rain, both of them irritably flicking the water off of their shoulders every once in a while as they crouched upon a rooftop overlooking the docks of the Colonial city. He had come to America at the behest of Adéwalé seeking a Piece of Eden, and Haytham had taken to the fresh environment with such appeal that he had asked to stay there with the Colonial Brotherhood. Edward could hardly disagree; Haytham was thriving here. He had quickly made friends with the newest Initiate named Shay and an older boy, a Novice, named Liam. Their ensemble was completed with a young woman called Hope, and when Haytham wasn’t chasing after them he was out in the woods learning the ways of the native peoples from a local woman who, he said, was nicknamed ‘Ziio.’

In short, he was in love and for the first time in his life he had proper friends who actually cared for him. There were none in the British Brotherhood that matched him even remotely in age. Even Jenny was twelve years his senior, and he had no other siblings.

“Do you think he’ll show up?” Jenny asked, breaking Edward out of his thoughts. He glanced over at his daughter and smiled. Now thirty-four, she had grown into a beautiful and accomplished woman with years of experience under her sash. She would make Master rank soon, her track record impressive.

“He was told to, and so he will,” he soothed. “Your brother is late, not disobedient.”

“I simply want to get the _Jackdaw_ underway as soon as possible. These waters aren’t safe for us right now with tensions with the French worsening. We fly the British flag after all.”

“And here I thought you wanted to get out of the rain.”

“I want to get back out onto the water,” Jenny countered with a frown. “I’ve been away from it for far too long.”

“My daughter has saltwater in her veins,” Edward said approvingly with a smile. “Like her father. And the adventure and strength of her mother.” He heaved a heavy sigh and slouched forward slightly in his crouch, sore. “Ooh. It’s weather like this that makes me feel all of the centuries at times, Jenny. I ache to my marrow.”

“Well, you _are_ fifty-four going on fifteen hundred, father,” she countered cheekily. He snickered. Like Altaïr and Ezio before him, he had never seen a need to hide what he was from his children. If they knew, they could be prepared to defend the secret rather than wonder at its truth and inadvertently help those who sought to try and take whatever ‘curse’ he had unto themselves.

“Tessa and I are moving to Kingston later this year,” he murmured. “My old gut wound gets terribly painful during the English winters, and the Caribbean Brotherhood has been in mild decline. Adéwalé sent a personal invitation. Tessa can live with the same expected comforts in Kingston as she has had in England, and I can see some more active field service to the Brotherhood with the year-round warm weather.”

“You’ll be taking the _Jackdaw_ , I expect,” Jenny sighed.

“I was rather thinking I’d leave her in your capable hands, _Captain Scott-Kenway,_ ” he whispered proudly. She startled, looking at him with wide eyes, and then grinned.

“Thank you, father. I’ll look after her with all the care and pride she deserves.”

At that moment, Haytham came running up the street with the local guards on his heels and his Robes flying like plumage behind him, his hood down and hair mostly out of its ponytail as his rain-darkened brown bangs whipped about in the wind. Grey-blue eyes were wild with excitement and he was laughing.

“Father, you might want to make for the ship!”

“Told you we should have prepared to get underway sooner,” Jenny said with amusement as the elder Kenways quickly stood from their crouch and raced across the rooftops after the errant Novice. “Haytham’s not exactly subtle.”

“He will be, given time,” Edward countered. “Now let’s go to your ship Captain, and be done with Philadelphia! I can’t wait to have the sand of the West Indies between my toes again.”

_ Four months later_

Cannon Fire belched thick smoke into the air as a battle was waged on rough seas, and Edward let out a warrior’s cry as he and Adéwalé struggled to keep their men on the winning side of this fight. He hadn’t been in such a naval brawl since the ‘teens and early twenties of the 18th Century, and the rumble of the mortars seemed to stir in his heart. Old battles long since gone echoed in his veins and made the spirit of a fighter burst out of his chest, each strike twice as effective and deadly. He was an immortal soldier fighting in an endless war, the Templar Crosses of those he was against crimson in the flash of musket and pistol fire.

The _Expecto Crede_ rammed full force into one of the enemy ships, sending splinters flying everywhere. The force of the impact jostled both Adéwalé and Edward overboard. The former of the two was out cold, the latter with a large chunk of wood sticking out of his heart.

Edward’s vision blurred as he dragged Adé’s greater bulk toward the nearby shore, every movement agony. They were in the shallows when dark spots overtook his eyesight and he fought to remain conscious as Adé coughed and came to, finally conceding the familiar feel of death’s embrace as he allowed himself to let go and be carried by the tides into his beloved ocean. Adéwalé’s Sharp cries were mute as he sank into his next life.

_The cry of his blood kin grandson coming into the world not nine years later echoed in his ears, and then for the sixth time everything went finitely dark._


	16. Ratonhnaké:ton’s Tale: Upon Old Foundations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like last time, I’m giving background in the notes because I don’t want to address this sheer amount of information in the actual text...
> 
> Haytham, as you saw last chapter, was raised as an Assassin in this. He was a few years older than Shay, but when his father died he clung to the Brotherhood. His elder sister was far away in British waters, his mother having prepared to move to Kingston but not making the trip before Edward had passed. Adéwalé told them all what happened in his usual serious responsible way. 
> 
> Well... then we get to the events in Rogue. When Shay was in Lisbon, Portugal, his search for a Piece of Eden resulted in a catastrophic earthquake being unleashed on the unsuspecting town. When Achilles refused to see reason, even with Haytham’s help, Shay took matters into his own hands and paid dearly for it. Haytham, by now older and more even-tempered under some truly astounding tutelage, followed more cautiously after him. Reginald Birch had been running the Colonial Templar Rite for the past several years and welcomed Haytham and Shay in happily, his eye set on grooming Haytham to one day take his place. 
> 
> Shay had decided to follow Haytham’s example, as the young Kenway remembered the stories of Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad and Al Mualim that Edward had told him, and was resolved to purge the Assassins’ Brotherhood of corruption. Together, the pair systematically wiped out their old Brotherhood - Haytham losing Ziio in the process as she had been an Assassin sympathizer. Over time, Templar indoctrination took further hold as the years stretched on and the Assassins held out, culminating in events in the Revolutionary War.

Walking into the abandoned church, Ratonhnaké:ton became aware of a presence observing him from a position above the entrance. The tiniest of creaks in leather boots alerted him to movement, and with a neat sidestep he cleared Haytham’s pounce. The elder man landed neatly on the frost-covered wooden floor, rising with a slight wince from his crouch into a stand and brushing himself off.

“Not as green as I’d imagined you’d be,” he commented lightly. Ratonhnaké:ton scowled at that, a deep sadness overtaking him.

“I am a Kenway,” he said simply.

“Yes, a Kenway with no first name. How disappointing.”

“I am Ratonhnaké:ton, and I am my mother’s son,” he murmured. “And despite what you think, you are very much the son of Edward Kenway still. Achilles told me of what happened during the Seven Years’ War. I-“

“Achilles knows nothing of what it means to be a true Assassin,” Haytham spat, gaze darkening with old wounds and anger. “He lives as an example of what becomes of those who stray from the Creed.”

“A task not yours to undertake,” Ratonhnaké:ton countered. “You are not Eagle’s-“

“My father was!” Haytham began to pace. “And he died saving the life of a man who would betray the very ideals he set down. What does that say of Edward’s legacy?”

“It says that he raised two children to think for themselves, and to do what was best for the people no matter the consequences.” Ratonhnaké:ton outstretched his arms and frowned. “Do you feel _guilty_ for betraying the Brotherhood, Haytham? You didn’t. The Brotherhood betrayed _you_. I don’t judge you for that. I never have.” A long, considering pause. “In fact, when I heard of it, I was proud. You stuck to your beliefs even when you paid dearly for it.”

“Why would _your_ pride in me matter?” Haytham scoffed. “You might be my son, but this is the first time we have ever conversed. There is no attachment, and if you’re looking for a heartwarming reunion, you can forget it.”

“Jenny is at the manor house, the _Jackdaw_ in the harbor beside my own ship the _Aquila_. I sent word for assistance and she brought recruits from Britain in the interests of rebuilding our Brotherhood here in the colonies.” Ratonhnaké:ton took a deep breath and summoned the deepest, oldest part of himself forward. “She asks after you daily, Haytham. She tried to get in touch to tell you that Tessa had died. She had tried to keep in touch over the years, but you pushed her away. Were you ashamed?” Haytham startled at the voice change, head whipping around with wide and startled eyes.

“F-Father?” He whispered, stumbling forward and looking deep into his son’s dark brown eyes and swallowing when he caught a glimpse of Caribbean blue hidden far inside them. “How- oh, oh Eagle’s Kin...”

“I’ll admit, it’s strange to be reborn as my own grandson,” Ratonhnaké:ton muttered awkwardly. “Very strange, and uncomfortable... Poor Jennifer, I keep speaking to her as if she were my daughter instead of my Aunt. You’re both my father and my past life’s son. It’s... confusing.”

“Yes, well the feeling is very much mutual,” Haytham croaked. He blew out a breath and looked around at the decrepit church. “I had word you would be here, but I’m not sure why.”

“Benjamin Church stole supplies for the British.” Both of them relaxed as they got down to brass tacks, the methodical movements of business soothing. “I was tracking the supplies to retrieve them, and then to track _him_. Is he still a Templar, or has he fallen from grace?”

“He’s no brother of mine.” A slight tilt of the head. “And I appreciate that there was no assumption he was still one of my Rite.”

“You wouldn’t have allowed a man like that to exploit the people.” A dismissive wave of the hand. “But it still leaves us with a problem.”

“Yes, where he went off to and finding the trail...”

“I have a lead, but I could use some bait.”

“...Oh, what did you have in mind?”

Haytham shifted in the branches of the trees, excitement all but vibrating through his frame. He had tilted his tricorn hat down to shade his eyes, the hidden blades that he had kept at his Exodus detracting and retracting with anticipation. There was a spark in his eyes that had been absent in the desecrated church that had returned with the thrill of a target hunt, and he and Ratonhnaké:ton moved with easy familiarity of one another’s movements; movements they both knew well from Edward’s experiences. Nary a clump of snow was dislodged from the branches as they crept after the tagged cart glowing golden with shimmering importance.

Absolute anarchy then proceeded to ensue with Haytham allowing himself to get caught so that Ratonhnaké:ton could slip past the sentries into the camp; once he had what he needed, he gave the signal and the elder man took his leave of his captors. They went careening through the forest, far outpacing the British Regulars, and when at last they reached safety Haytham let out a short and wheezy laugh.

“I’ve been operating things back at base for so long now, I’d forgotten what a proper rush field work was,” he said. He shot a glance at his son and some of the exuberance faded. The young man beside him wasn’t hindered by age as he was, as his father had been before he had died. His ligaments and tendons were fresh and bent easily, his heart strong and youthful. Every aspect of his body was agile and athletic, the build of a man accustomed to a long life of active labor of some sort or another.

“What’s it like, being young again?” He asked, curious. “To feel the absence of pain and stiffness where once they were present? To heal quickly from serious injury where previously it would take a long time?”

“You get used to it after a while, but...”

“But...?”

“The aches and pains never fully go away,” Ratonhnaké:ton confessed. “It remains, deep in your soul, and projects through your bones. You become... weary, of the world and the lives you have lived.” He blew out a frosty breath and sighed. “I am glad I do not remember everything in great detail, and that all that came prior to my immediate past life fades with time. I feel it might be unbearable to remember centuries of living.”

-/\\-

_In the end, Haytham eventually decided not to defend Charles Lee’s actions. He was after power and no longer a patron of the people. All that he had been raised for, that he had seen, lay in the direction Ratonhnaké:ton was taking the new Colonial Brotherhood. With the help of Aveline de Grandpré of New Orleans and Jennifer Scott-Kenway, he had laid Achilles to rest with the rest of his family and then assumed the mantle of Mentor to train the new Novices they’d recruited. With Jenny overseeing the books and Aveline helping with the Novices, Ratonhnaké:ton had had time to hunt down Charles Lee and his Templar associates._

_ One Year After the Battle of Yorktown_

Haytham hesitated at the back doorway of the house. He’d taken his time walking through the newly-founded little village, marveling at his son’s ability to bring even the oddest assortment of people together. Miriam, the hunter he’d brought in, was one of the Novices and just back from a short honeymoon period with her husband Norris. The blacksmith had quickly learned the art of crafting hidden blades, and the seamstress the art of tailoring Assassin Robes. The tavern was a hive of trade gossip perfect for picking up intelligence and they were self-sufficient with their own doctor, harbor, and farm full of varied livestock and crops.

It was truly amazing and - well, characteristic - of him to have brought such a dead place back to life even more vibrantly than it had previously been before. That was what an Eagle’s Kin did, really. Brought light and warmth back to the dead places. Provided security of artifacts that needed to be kept safe from those that were not yet ready to keep them. Safety, security, warmth, and unity. Like a parent bird sheltering its offspring under its wings until they were ready to take flight.

“Is it strange to be back here after all these years?” Ratonhnaké:ton asked. Haytham blew out a breath to dispel his thoughts and nodded.

“Very strange indeed. But in a good way. Ehm, what exactly are we going to be doing this evening?”

“Jennifer suggested we light several fireworks off of the cliff over the bay,” Ratonhnaké:ton said with a soft and encouraging smile. At Haytham’s in-drawn breath he pointed toward the kitchen. “She’s in there.”

Heart thundering in his chest, Haytham made his way into the kitchen and swallowed as his elder sister looked up from kneading dough.

“You’ve gotten old, baby brother,” she teased gently with a smile. “Your hair all grey. Mm. Like your mother’s eyes goggling out at me from that handsome face of yours.”

“I see you’ve lost none of your fire nor ire over the years,” he retorted ruefully, clutching his hat in between his hands. It was true. There were silver streaks in her blazing mane of wavy red hair, but it was that: gorgeous silver streaks. Their father’s eyes still burned holes through his conscience from above her petite nose. “Jenny...”

“Yes?”

“Did- did Ratonhnaké:ton tell you?” Something in her stalwart expression finally softened and she nodded, dusting her hands off on an apron and opening her arms wide for a rare offer of a comforting hug. Haytham immediately went to her; the opportunity came so rarely that it was too precious to ever squander, even as a middle-aged adult.

“He did,” she murmured into his shoulder. We’re the lucky ones, Haytham. You do realize that, yes?”

“I do.”

“Sounds like quite a party going on up at the manor,” an unfamiliar voice commented. Ratonhnaké:ton glanced up from working the ropes on the deck of the _Aquila_ to see a smaller vessel crammed in next to her and the _Jackdaw._ The harbor was barely big enough to fit all of them with adequate room. It seemed the vessel’s Captain was chatting up Old Robert Faulkner by the Draughts table.

“Authorized vessels in this harbor only mister,” Faulkner snapped. The newcomer shrugged, grinning.

“I heard Haytham Kenway was gonna be here, had to see it with my own two eyes.” A look of apprehension crossed his face as he looked to the house again. “Who’s in charge up there nowadays? Is it still Old Man Achilles?”

“No, he died about two years past,” Ratonhnaké:ton said as he dropped down onto the deck. “I’m in charge now. You have no enemies here as long as you behave yourself. Today is a day of truce, and while I am here it always will be.” He smiled softly. “Even to you, Shay. Even to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that concludes what I want to do with the Kenway lads. It wasn’t much different, but obviously the outcome of Connor’s journey in Assassin’s Creed III was altered. 
> 
> I don’t mean to imply that either Haytham or Shay ever went back to the Assassins’ Brotherhood. Some wounds cut too deep and can’t be healed. However, I do believe that while Connor and Haytham were alive the newly-minted United States of America enjoyed a respectful respite from the Assassin-Templar War when it came to the North Atlantic region. 
> 
> Amd that specific days were given as days of truce when Haytham would be welcome in the mansion to interact with family. 
> 
> Why? Because I’m a sap and this is supposed to be a non-canonical fix-it fic where all the characters get some small measure of happiness in their lives, that’s why.


	17. Arno's Journey I: A House Divided

Arno’s Robes fluttered lightly in a stiff breeze as he crouched on the wall bordering the courtyard where Élise was to make contact with her informants, unease mimicking the movement in the pit of his stomach. It had been a short while since he’d seen her, since she’d allowed him to be thrown into the Bastille.

It hadn’t been his fault.

He’d missed Monsieur De La Serre that morning with the letter and had arrived at Élise’s party not to mingle but to find him; having read the contents he had been concerned of arriving too late to warn him, and sneaking into the palace at Versailles had taken longer than he’d thought it would. Templars had been everywhere and any amount of Assassin Mastery he had accumulated over the years was still up against the considerable skill of a veritable army of people who had been trained to keep an eye out for Assassins. As he had not been invited he couldn’t very well go through the front door, so that left finding an open window, causing a distraction in the courtyard utilizing the efforts of a pair of brothers who he’d helped settle the card debts they were owed - with prejudice.

No one could beat Edward at cards, and thanks to his skill Arno was the same way.

Distraction caused, he had vaulted the exterior walls, run across the roof, and neatly leapt through the one open window he could find on the entire property. That left disguising himself as the wait staff, avoiding people who knew him, and trying to infiltrate the most populous and open part of the building to reach De La Serre.

...Well, he’d eventually succeeded, much to the man’s shock to witness a _friendly_ Assassin who only had concern for his welfare and who was even further shocked to learn that his ward had been fully aware the home he was being raised in was that of the Templar Grandmaster since he was a small boy. The word ‘Kenway’ had helped assuage some of the confusion over the acceptance, and the pair had taken their leave of the party to discuss the letter.

De La Serre had been killed as they were talking of security and counter-offensive arrangements, two old enemies coming together against a rogue threat that could potentially destroy them both. Élise hadn’t even bothered to ask for Arno’s testimony and had let them cart him off to prison for something he hadn’t done.

Oh, there was resentment there on both sides to be sure. But Arno was a proper full-fledged Master Assassin now, having confided in Mirabeau of his status as Eagle’s Kin after the ageing Mentor had earned his wary trust, and Élise was now the rightful Templar Grandmaster. Whatever their differences, the spat was immature and unfitting of either of them. Arno was several centuries too old to cling to grudges formed by the actions of little girls who had yet to fully grow up. With the troubles she had since faced, Élise by now understood how to go about things as a full-fledged adult in a place of responsibility.

At least, he hoped. Because if he were to find Germain - yet another Sage and vessel of Aita - he would need her help.

Red smoky figures crossed the courtyard toward Élise’s shimmering gold, and growling softly in frustration under his breath Arno vaulted off the wall to come to her defense.

“I expected better of Mirabeau’s Right Hand,” Élise quipped sarcastically as they dashed into the garden maze.

“Mirabeau’s _what!?_ ” Arno exclaimed, too busy scanning the area around them with his Sight to pay much attention to what she was saying.

“Right Hand,” Élise repeated. “Everyone’s talking about the Rising Star in the Assassins’ Ranks. Knew it was you the moment I heard.”

“Because I’m Eagle’s Kin.”

“We just... called you The Phoenix,” she said, blinking. Arno rolled his eyes and finally turned to properly address her.

“Yes, well. The _adage_ was given by the Medieval Assassins because they expected me to always carry the blood of Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad in my veins. Which I do not. It’s not even remotely close to a requirement. But the title stayed regardless.” He shook his head. “Yours makes much more sense, quite honestly. But I have to admit there’s a sort of... poetic nostalgia tied to the Assassin term. I confided in Mirabeau after determining he would keep the secret, and he promoted me to Master rank shortly after. I’ve proven that I earned that time and time again.”

“Why hide?”

“Yes, let’s tell _everyone in France_ that I’m a reincarnated immortal so that they can burn me at the stake for witchcraft, why don’t we?” The dry remark made Élise wince but nod, conceding the point.

“Fine then. Hide like a rat. Paris is full of them these days.” Arno rounded on her at that, and for the first time since the weeks just after his father’s death she actually saw the centuries and depths of pain he kept hidden from everyone.

“I’m not some _avenging angel_ you can sic on those that seek to harm you!” He snapped. “I’m a man, like any other, who happens to be cursed to live forever without the wherewithal to withdraw consent that was never asked, and I’ve never been given the reason why. My collective lives are not _fair_ , Élise, and I’ve never complained about it. Call it a stoic failing of mine that carries over from one body to the next, but I’ve not once complained. I don’t do so now, but I need you to _understand_. I have a purpose here to fulfill, a reason for being reborn into this time and place. I know not what it is, but I haven’t done it yet. That much I can feel.

“Do you know what else I feel, Élise? Hm? I feel pain. I feel fear. And sorrow. And regret. I _feel_ , because I am a man. And I fear death. I never know whether I go toward my last embrace with it, or whether it will carry me into the arms of my next mother, wailing and gasping my first breaths all over again. Do you know which I would prefer? I would prefer not to begin the cycle anew again. To have _peace_. But I am not a creature made for peace, and it is not my lot. I am not a god, nor an angel. I am a fallible human being.”

“Then what good are you?” Élise whispered back, hot anger pushing the tears into the corners of her eyes. The tears she had refused to shed to properly grieve her father. She shoved them back with a sharp brush of her hand.

Something in Arno’s posture shattered. The broken immortal was suddenly closed to her, and she got the sharp impression that he had decided she no longer held the trust - and thus honor - of being permitted to see that side of him. It was a slap to the face and a wake-up call all at once and she immediately regretted her words.

Mr. Weatherall had taken her aside the day after her initiation ceremony to tell her of what he had witnessed from the shadows that night, of seeing the pair converse over her father’s safety. Of catching a glimpse at a future where Assassin and Templar worked together to better a world descending into darkness. How that dream had been cut short by the simple thrust of a poisoned pin into her father’s body, and now Arno’s posture had given Weatherall deep certainty from where he had happened to chance upon a window that gave him a view of the courtyard that the men who had run off into the night had been marked for death by something ancient and powerful.

Arno had attempted to save him. So why was she angry with him?

The answer of course, which she steadfastly denied, was that she was angry at herself.

“I’ll climb up to see the path out of this maze,” Arno said, his words drawing her out of her self-loathing. Élise blinked. To anyone he seemed unaffected, his attitude easy and slightly chastising of her for not remembering the way on her own. He was acting as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t laid the very depth of his being in front of her only to watch as she stabbed him in the chest for it. If she had been blessed as Assassins were with the Sight of the Eagle that she had heard legends of, she was certain she would have seen phantom wounds gushing with blood.

The Café Théâtre was... unlike anything else of its time. There hadn’t been a theatre inside a cafe before, and Élise was absolutely certain there wouldn’t be one after for a very long time. The mere idea of it was... flabbergasting.

Three figures slid into the unoccupied seats at her table and she startled before spotting Arno sitting on her right side - her blade side. Heh. Clever boy...

The man to her left was an older gentleman, much the worse for wear and scruffy. He was slouching in his seat with a slight scowl on his face and eyeing her with abject distrust, though the way he kept glancing at Arno meant that he was taking cues from the younger man. Which meant he knew Arno’s secret, which meant he was probably his tutor.

Thirdly. The man sitting directly opposite her was none other than Mirabeau himself, sometimes business partner of her father and his equal in rank when it came to the governance of their respective Orders. If he was here at Arno’s behest... well. He knew Arno’s secret as well. That much she had been told prior to this unexpected meeting.

“I thought it would just be Arno and I this morning,” she said casually as she sipped at a weak tea and fought back a grimace. Honey was scarce right now and this blend was bitter. Setting the cup back down she folded her hands neatly on her crossed legs and assumed a formal posture. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Germain is a Sage,” Mirabeau said easily, watching Élise’s spine stiffen ever so slightly. Her eyes darted toward Arno, who was resolutely ignoring her by watching the street. And, she was sure, the entire Café around them.

“That explains many things then,” came the smooth reply. A slight shift in her posture to relax her muscles was the only indication she gave that she was acknowledging he had seen her reaction. “Sages and Phoenixes have been enemies since they first encountered one another.”

“Eagle’s Kin,” Arno grumbled. “And yes, I hate him. In our first lives, it was he and his wife that murdered me and made me what I am.”

_Oh. That,_ she had not known nor had expected to hear. It cast things in a different light.

“...I see. So, you want my help- or rather, my knowledge as I have no forces to aid our cause- in hunting him down.”

“And you don’t want to see him under a guillotine?” The mystery man muttered derisively. Élise pinned him with a level stare.

“I’m sorry, but who are you again?”

“Pierre Bellec, and a friend of my late father,” Arno sighed. “Ignore him, he’s trying to get you to snap to prove you’re untrustworthy. Even though I told him to take your interest in the chase as loyalty enough to see him dead.”

“Didn’t realize you trusted me that much,” she quipped. She had been hoping to see that flicker of eternity in his gaze and was disappointed when the soft chocolatey brown remained passive and still.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Arno said casually, leaning back ever so subtly in his seat in a relaxed and open posture. Everyone at the table was well aware she had a sword on her and that he was sitting on the side of her sword arm. So. Arno trusted her, but the Eagle’s Kin did not.

...Was there an actual difference between the two? More importantly, would she ever regain the trust of the latter?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don’t at least appreciate Arno’s dry wit then we need to have a talk because you at least have to have a grudging respect for his sheer depth of passion. The man wears his heart on his sleeve and that is so much of a privilege to write. As far as story goes, Unity is actually one of my favorites. It wasn’t well-executed when it comes to technological ability when it came out, but after several patches the game is very immersive and quite honestly beautiful in some places. 
> 
> The Café Théâtre is anachronistic as, according to the internet, the first one was created in 1966. Who knew. Well, aside from those people on the internet. *shrugs*
> 
> I know not much happened in this chapter, but I needed to establish Arno and Élise’s relationship, which is made vastly more complicated by his status as an Eagle’s Kin. By showing her how broken he really was, he was showing her the deep amount of unconditional trust he placed in her. By her disregarding that, his refusal to reveal it again shows that that unconditional trust has been withdrawn. Because, unlike in the canon events, Arno is not a young Assassin just graduated from the rank of Novice. He is a seasoned Master with a level of maturity only most closely matched by people about to die after a long life. Élise, in contrast, remains the same as she was in the game: a young woman who had begun training for the job she suddenly had thrust upon her that she was not yet ready to acquire without further teaching from her father. She has a bit of growing up to do yet, but if there’s one thing Arno can be after living so long it’s patient.


	18. Evie's Tale: Shrouded Secrets

She stared at the shimmering cloth, numb as she lay on the stone floor of the Buckingham Vault with Henry’s head nestled against her thigh, waiting for Jacob to return with the Rooks. Henry had a concussion, her arm was injured, and she was unwilling to leave the Artifact. So, she had Jacob go and fetch help.

The Cloak... it made her skin prickle. Vague memories of Atlantis came back to her, of the plague... of her mother retrieving the cloak at the behest of Poseidon’s son and watching the technology, still prototypical, kill the very man it aimed to help. It had killed Starrick in the end, the power overwhelming, and Evie thought there was a lovely irony in such an ending.

That shroud had never worked as intended on human subjects, driving them mad or physically harming them. Evie frowned slightly, reaching out and brushing her fingers against it. With a gasp, she drew her hand back quickly and clutched at her wrist and neck. Any injuries Starrick had given her were gone, healed. She swallowed, glancing down to startle when she saw Henry looking up at her.

“Your eyes glowed golden, for just a moment,” he murmured. “You’re a lot more like them than you prefer to think you are, Evie.”

“It scares me,” she admitted, stroking her fingers through his hair absently. Evie drew in a shaky breath and took in her surroundings. “This place isn’t safe anymore. I don’t think England in general is safe.”

“What should we do with it then?” Jacob asked from the entryway, causing them both to look up as he returned with some of their allies in tow.

“Take it to a stronger location with a greater Assassin presence.” She shifted uncomfortably on the stone. “I feel the pull toward India.”

“The Pull?”

“Sometimes... Sometimes I can feel when I am needed elsewhere than where I currently am. It is the reason I left Italy and traveled to Constantin- Ah, that is, Istanbul. I have felt called to many places over the ce- years, and now India beckons.” Evie frowned as she looked up into the face of her twin, appreciating his understanding as he came to crouch in front of her to bring them to eye level. “I’m reluctant to leave you on your own.” Jacob grinned.

“Don’t be. Ned and Freddy here’ll keep me on the straight and narrow, and when I get too out of control they’ll send in little Miss Clara to smack some sense into me. Yeah? You, you do what- what you need to do, dear sister.” False cheer blanketed his voice thickly. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ve never been apart from you before. It feels... wrong.”

“Hey, well. That’s because we’ve been stuck with one another since conception.” Jacob’s face pulled into a grimace at the reminder. “Forget I said that.”

“Never,” Evie whispered with a soft chuckle. She sighed, lightly rising to a stand and moving to pack the Shroud away. “Now, to make sure this never sees the light of day ever again...”


	19. Desmond’s Journey I: The More Things Change...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I skipped ahead a bit in Desmond’s story because I really can’t do anything with the narrative while he’s stuck in Abstergo. Besides, I missed Rebecca and Shaun...

“Desmond! We have to- _what are you doing!?_ ” Desmond, who currently had one foot out of a neatly-cut hole in the big window with the company window washer helping him over, blinked at her and then at the situation before returning his attention to her.

“...That’s a rhetorical question, right?” Lucy sighed, scraping a hand down her face. This was _not_ how she had pictured this day going.

“How did you-“

“Well, Donato here noticed me on the first evening locked in. See, you should really use fingerprint scans when you’re trying to keep a guy imprisoned when he has Eagle Vision. And, anyway, we got to chatting. For a company that doesn’t care about the welfare of its employees, Abstergo really is obsessive over clean windows, and since I’ve had five-“

“Six,” came a gruff interruption from outside.

“Six, days to talk to him, and he gets lousy pay by the way, truly awful, it didn’t take much to convince him to bring a glass cutter next time.” Desmond gestured to the hole. “See?”

“And you’re just, what, going to free-run the rest of the way to safety,” Lucy summarized flatly.

“Well, yeah. Short of fighting my way through the _entire facility_ and- I don’t know- hitching a ride in the boot of someone’s car, this option really seems like the best way to go.” He shrugged. “So... are you coming with, considering you looked like you were in the middle of a jailbreak when you ran in, or...?”

“Get in the Animus,” she muttered. “I need to steal some data and wipe whatever they managed to get with you being as horrible a Subject as possible.”

“It’s a gift.”

“I’m sure.” They both frowned at one another as Desmond reluctantly laid back on the machine, Lucy frantically pulling up the information on Subject 16 and crossing her fingers for a genetic match. When the Animus let out a tiny chirp she grinned and Desmond let out a yelp as he was made to relive Ezio’s birth. Pulling the data core out of the Animus, she stuffed it into her bag and moved toward the window. Whether she liked the escape route or not, it was admittedly the better option. Except...

”Desmond! Come on!”

“I’m gonna, gonna need a minute,” Desmond retorted, sitting up and smacking his forehead several times over to get the imagery out. He _remembered_ that thanks to his eidetic memory, thank you very much. No need to bring it to the forefront of his thoughts and haunt his every waking step.

“Desmond!”

“Why don’t I shove _you_ into that thing and make you relive your- I mean, your _ancestor’s_ birth, huh?” He grumbled as he stumbled to a stand and dashed for the window. Donato made a comment about disappointingly slow get-aways and lowered the platform as close to the ground as possible, which was still about three floors up. Desmond threw himself off of it without hesitation, neatly catching the side of the entrance cover and using it to break his fall into a clean catlike landing on his feet. Lucy let out a soft whimper and leapt after, wrenching her shoulder in the maneuver and crashing hard onto the pavement.

An alarm rang out in the building, and suddenly Lucy was being slung over Desmond’s shoulder and he was running. They went flying over a bridge a few minutes later and she was coughing on water, fighting him angrily as he pulled her under the arch to remain hidden. Large trucks rumbled overhead and shook some rubble from the historic structure, and after a few moments he relaxed his grip.

Lucy took the opportunity, while he was distracted looking for pursuit, to study him. Desmond was... Desmond. There wasn’t really anything else to describe him with. He was definitely his own person.

The scar on his lip proved he’d been in more than a few close scrapes, the tattoo she could see on his left arm where his hoodie sleeve rode up showing that he held a special fondness for individuality. The fact that it was hidden that he also approved of anonymity. He had purposeful stubble and perpetually-tufty curling dark brown hair, and his eyes... Not many people had eyes that turned gold when the light hit them just right. And she could have sworn, over the period of the last almost week, that they were never one solid color. Sometimes they were blue, or tinged green, or hazel. Sometimes they were burning gold or a brown so deep they were almost like burnt oak. Other times they were like melted chocolate.

The default color seemed to be a rich honey gold, soft gold. No sharpness inside of them. A very pleasant and unique color, really. But right now, as they hid under the bridge in the water, they were more of an introspective golden brown. Even his posture - such as it was when treading water - was different than the way he usually held himself. It sent shivers down her spine.

“We weren’t followed,” Desmond whispered softly. Lucy jerked her head back when he turned to look at her and the color seemed to shift back into that honey gold. To her, that color meant safety. He was most predictable when they were like that. He was most... _human_ , for lack of a better term... “I take it your Assassin friends have a safe house nearby for us to go to. That _was_ where you were taking me when you interrupted my self-rescue, right?”

“How is it a self-rescue when you needed outside- you know what, don’t answer that.” She drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, we’ve got a safe house. My team is there, actually. Waiting for me to extract you from Abstergo and complete seven years’ worth of undercover work.”

“And that data core you extracted?”

“A bag of rice should get it working again.” Lucy grimaced. “...I hope.”

Shoes squelching as they approached the nondescript warehouse building, Lucy cast the hundredth glare in Desmond’s direction as she wrung out her ponytail, _again_. It had been a bun. Now it was a bedraggled ponytail.

“This is what you guys call low profile?” Desmond whistled. “Wow. This is. This is not low profile. This is like. The opposite of low profile. ‘Hey, what are those people doing entering and exiting an abandoned warehouse district on a regular basis?’ ‘I don’t know, Wally, we should go take a look.’ Bam, nabbed by a group of Templars.”

“I hate you.”

”Seriously, this building is not a good idea,” Desmond muttered. He followed her in with a frown, walking in a sort of loping stride that set her teeth on edge because of how _Assassin_ - _like_ it was. Her instincts were radiating warning signals and yet... “Why am I here, Lucy. Why did you want me to come here?” She cruised to a stop on the ramp leading to the penthouse level and bit her lip.

“Because we need help, Desmond. And I think you’re it. Everybody’s after you for what you’ve got locked away in your blood. Assassins. Templars. Confirmed Third Parties the we don’t know the motives of.”

“If you’re trying to convince me that I’d be dead without you,” he began in a low voice, eyes flashing burnt umbre, “you’ve got another thing coming. I don’t respond well to threats, and I survived just fine on my own without you. I would have gotten out of _Abstergo_ without you. In fact, that’s what I was doing when you ran in. The only reason I got caught was because Abstergo has Daniel Cross hunt me down. Tagged me, then let the professionals come in to kidnap me.”

“You knew Cross was following you?”

“He wasn’t exactly subtle about it.” Desmond blew out a breath and leant against the railing. “I was going to make a big score in tips the night they got me, pick up my pay, and blow town. Ghost and never be heard from again. My mistake was that I underestimated their response time once they locked onto a target.” His eyes glittered, shifting to melted chocolate. “It won’t happen again.”

“So you’re not staying then,” Lucy huffed.

“I didn’t say that.” He swallowed. “I’ve got Vidic Marked.”

“‘Marked?’” All she got in response was a sharp golden stare and she shivered as the full meaning sank in. “Oh.”

“Screwing over Templars along the way, that- that’s like, my calling in life, it seems. Ah, well.”

“So you- you’re helping us... but only out of spite,” Lucy summarized, blinking. Desmond shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“Pretty much, yeah.” Lucy looked him over for a few more moments before turning and walking toward the rest of the team, missing the unguarded expression of cold fury on his face as he surveyed the warehouse and reflected on how far his people had fallen. How far the Templars had dragged them from where they had once been.

He had been out of the fight because it was right to be so. But here, now. This was where he was supposed to be. He felt the by-now familiar Pull.

Squaring his shoulders, he settled into a casual gait as he followed Lucy into the ‘penthouse.’ At the door, he hung back and leant against the frame to take in his surroundings.

The room was open and clearly had once been a factory office level. On the left wall were desks piled with books and a wall full of monitors spewing data on Assassin movements. On the right was another Animus and a pair of desks. Computer data cores lined the wall directly next to the door opening, though there were far fewer of them than Abstergo had had. Beyond these areas was a platform upon which rested a beanbag chair, a papasan, a loveseat, and a pair of recliners. A battered coffee table sat in the midst of them covered in old Chinese takeout containers and pizza boxes.

So. They had no dining space but they did have a kitchenette off the hall, just two bedrooms, a single full bath, and this communal space. Functional, not homey. Reminded him of the Bureaus during the Crusades, really. Not meant to be a home away from home but a place of work that provided for the basic needs.

There were two people in the room, one of them a short but spunky-looking woman in a sort of techno jumpsuit with jet black spiky hair and light blue eyes. The man, who wore a sweater over a dress shirt and slacks, had ruffled ginger hair and dark hazel eyes. She was American and definitely optimistic, he was British and definitely pessimistic.

He reminded Desmond so much of Malik that he wanted to cry. _Why did he keep seeing old friends in stranger’s faces!?_ It just wasn’t fair...

They were both busy reuniting with Lucy, who seemed far happier now that she was back with friends.

“Yeah, there was a river incident...” Lucy laughed, her voice tuning Desmond back into the conversation as she handed the woman - Rebecca, and the man was Shaun - the data core. “We’re going to have to let it rest in rice overnight before we can do anything with it.”

“No worries,” Rebecca snickered. Shaun was making a point of looking around the room.

“So the Poster Boy didn’t come with then?” He asked, feigning a very thin veneer of disappointment. “Pity. Oh well, we can do without.”

“No, Desmond’s here, he was just downstairs... right behind me coming up,” Lucy said with a frown, gaze sweeping the room before squinting at the shadows of the alcove before finding him. “There he is.” Both Rebecca and Shaun followed the pointing of her arm at that, their eyes widening comically at the extra presence neither of them had noticed watching the goings-on. Desmond took that as his cue to enter the room properly and approached Rebecca first, smiling and offering his hand to shake.

“Hey. Guess we’re going to be working with one another for a while.”

“You’re pretty sneaky,” she retorted with a grin. He matched it.

“Well, how else was I supposed to evade capture for nine years running?”

“Tou _ché_.”

“Yeah, and how did you get caught again?” Shaun asked insolently. Desmond met him square in the eye.

“I didn’t. It took a Master former Assassin in Daniel Cross two years to hunt me down, and I knew where he was when he showed up. Had it been two hours later they wouldn’t have found me. I was that close to skipping town.”

“...Oh.”

“Anyway,” Lucy said, clapping her hands together slightly and making the others sans Desmond jump at the sound. “We can’t work tonight with the core the way it is, so I say we make a _proper_ dinner and catch up before calling an early night.”

“Sounds good,” Shaun replied. “But you’re overlooking the fact that none of us can cook.”

“I can,” Desmond countered. “You don’t survive on a construction worker’s salary in NYC on takeout. Too expensive. Had three roommates, one of which had been drilled into cooking by a militant grandmother. Taught me everything I know. What sounds good? Italian, French, English, Middle Eastern? Maybe Egyptian or Caribbean? I can do _some_ Greek but it’s not the prettiest of things.”

“ _You_ can cook English?” Shaun scoffed. “Not likely.”

“I know a gauntlet when I hear one being thrown,” Lucy chuckled.

“English it is then.”

Okay, yeah, Shaun conceded later that night as he brushed his teeth. Desmond could cook English. It had been a blast of unexpected nostalgia and the sauce he’d made to go with the meal was just close enough to his own family’s secret recipe that he’d almost teared up over it.

Almost. He had _some_ dignity.

Thunder boomed outside, rain hitting the thin roof in driving sheets in a near-unbearable cacophony, and with a sigh he made his way toward his - _their_ \- room. Yeah.

Rebecca and Lucy were bunking together one door down, but he was stuck with Desmond now that there were more than two people living in the safe house. The man had grabbed some extra blankets and neglected to take the other bunk in favor of making a cot on the floor; it was well-hidden against the wall from the door and Shaun supposed it made sense from the viewpoint of an Assassin. But Desmond wasn’t an Assassin.

...Wasn’t he?

Shaking his head, Shaun left the bathroom with his shower kit and walked the short distant to their room. The lights flickered ominously with another rolling boom of thunder and then fizzled out completely, the only light in the hallway from the periodic flashes out the windows and the light seeping under the door from the Animus Room. All of the equipment in there had been placed on a high-tech generator courtesy of Rebecca for just such emergencies.

Pushing open the door, shoulders slumped in tired defeat, Shaun blinked to adjust his eyes to the darkness of the bedroom. Lightning flashed outside, a gigantic flash that shook the window panes, and Shaun yelped as Desmond’s silhouette was thrown into sharp relief against the light. For a few moments, Shaun could have sworn he saw _wings_. Desmond turned at the noise Shaun had made, what Shaun fancied was a _Serial Killer Smile_ resting on his lips, his eyes going through so many colors before settling on burning gold that there was no way it was human.

“You okay, Hastings?”

“...”

“...”

“... _What kind of Lov_ ** _ecraftian EldRiTCH HORROR_** -”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONCERNING EYES  
> I played around with this concept a little bit in my prologue to Vox Populi’s sequel, and I really decided I wanted to do more with it in... pretty much any Assassin’s Creed fic I write. Now, a quick guide as to what which eye color represents in case it gets confusing. Each eye color Desmond shifts with represents one of his past selves, and thus gives an idea as to which memories are influencing him most at the current moment...
> 
> Kassandra of Sparta - Burnt Umbre, dark brown with reddish pigmentation.  
> Bayek of Siwa - Burnt sienna gold, aka mostly brown with faint gold highlights.  
> Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad - Sharp, burning gold.  
> Ezio Auditore da Firenze - Golden brown.  
> Edward Kenway - Caribbean Sea blue with green tint.  
> Ratonhnaké:ton (Kenway) - Coffee brown, very dark.  
> Arno Dorian - Melted chocolate brown.  
> Evie Frye - Jade green with cobalt blue undertones.
> 
> Special Colors Include:  
> Desmond Miles (his default color for when he is purely himself) - Honey gold, a rich and soft color.  
> Eagle’s Kin (What his Isu self’s eye color had been, used only when in contact with PoEs) - Molten gold, always shifting like liquid metal but entirely golden.


	20. Part III

PART III - RECKONING

As time moves on the line will blur. It will no longer seem to be 

the simplicity good versus evil, but good versus fools 

who think they are good.

\- Criss Jami, _Killosophy_


	21. Altaïr’s Journey II: Judge of Damas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternatively Titled “Altaïr does a speedrun through Damascus.”

Altaïr was torn between just doing everything on his own and accepting that the risk of speaking with the Rafiq- Yassir Malik had called him - was worth it for the sheer amount of information he needed to collect. Three targets, three different lives and social circles and jobs and personal goals. Three men who had information on Al Mualim and Robert De Sablé he needed to collect before killing them to destroy the support network.

He swore and scrambled up onto the roof of the Bureau, annoyed. The less people involved in this little scheme of his, the better. He was the Last Medjay. He didn’t need anyone else.

...Except he wasn’t, and now that he’d finally Settled he could remember how lonely things had been before the creation of the Brotherhood. He didn’t want to isolate himself from the Found Family he’d been given not once but twice over.

Yassir was leaning boredly on his desk, a clay jar in front of him half painted with unique design. He startled, falling back from his stool in shock when he glanced up to find Altaïr mere feet away from him on the other side of the desk.

“Ah! Altaïr! You’re even more ah... _stealthy_ than usual,” he stuttered, leaping to a stand and quickly brushing himself off. “Eh... Malik sent a pigeon, and I’ve been told to hear what it is you have to say before alerting Al Mualim that you yet live.” He picked up his stool and sat back down on it uneasily, pushing his project to the side. “So speak, and I shall decide.”

“Al Mualim is a traitor to our Brotherhood,” Altaïr said bluntly, reaching into his satchel and delivering the evidence for inspection. Yassir’s eyes glittered oddly as he read through them, as if he were weighing something in his mind, and after a few moments he reached under his desk and pulled out a heavy tome.

“You are not the only one to be suspicious of the Master my friend,” he explained. “In this journal I have recorded several accounts that have sat ill with me. Things he has sent many of our Order to do on his behalf that, separately, do not seem to be of issue. But put them together...”

“And you find a sinister plot running through all of it.”

“Exactly. We are told to be observant, yet our Master seems to forget his Rafiqs can see much of the big picture that he himself is solely privy to.”

“In Damas are three men who serve the cause of Robert De Sablé,” Altaïr said in a low voice, leaning forward to whisper. Yassir did the same to listen. “These same men have answers about Al Mualim. I need to interrogate, then kill them.”

“My resources are yours.”

-/\\-

He paced the Souk impatiently, scowling at the crowd and the lack of the black arms merchant Tamir. If the man delayed much longer, then- Ah. There he was. Arguing with one of his laborers, near the fountain.

The area was far too exposed. It was why he needed to stealthily drop a letter into the man’s pocket, or press it into his hand, to lure him to a different location.

Two weeks of intelligence gathering. Two weeks of growing a thick but short beard to obscure his facial features to the point where altering his accent from Syrian to Bayek’s Egyptian was enough of a disguise among the Brotherhood if he kept his hood up that he could walk among them to request help on gathering information, or assisting them in their tasks in exchange for it. That, coupled with his own exhaustive research, still brought the sheer vast amount he and Yassir needed to formulate an attack on all three men to their attention after two long weeks.

Altaïr wasn’t certain exactly how long he had _expected_ it to be, but half a month was pushing it. He would have to do better for the targets in Acre and Jerusalem once his business was finished in Damas. Luckily, he had Maria scouting Acre under the guise of helping William of Montferrat organize his troops and Malik in Jerusalem commanding an entire network of Assassins operating there. Unlike Damascus, he would not be starting from scratch.

Maria would have two weeks’ head start on intelligence gathering in Acre, and Malik - and he was being optimistic, he realized as he thought this - about a week more in Jerusalem. They needed all they could find on Robert De Sablé lest he escape; while he was a Marked Target he was too stubborn to part with his information and was thus useless to him lest he was dead. Precautions were always necessary, hence the predator bow he had crafted over the past two weeks resting like a comforting wright against his back over the quiver full of hand-crafted arrows. Sometimes, you had to go for distance...

He fingered the note folded neatly against his palm with impatience as Tamir continued to argue with the elderly laborer. Or was it a supplier? Altaïr frowned and focused his senses upon the conversation, the world around him going dangerously fuzzy except for the pair of men he was concerned with. This, and an uncanny heightening of all of his senses, had been a boon once he had been Awakened. Everything was sharper, crisper, clearer. Every sense finely attuned and at least twice that of what it had previously been, and the greater control he could summon to direct the input he was receiving... before his Awakening it was if he had been blind. Regular humans could not see in the dark.

Malik had screamed the first evening he had walked in to see Altaïr’s eyes gleaming at him out of the shadows.

But back to the matter at hand. Now, the pair that were talking. The way Tamir acted, it seemed to be ‘employer and laborer.’ But the words that were spoken... that was ‘merchant and supplier.’ Was Tamir really so arrogant that-

Tamir threw the elder man into the fountain, drawing a knife, and the display that commenced was so bloody that it made even Altaïr’s experienced stomach turn violently in revulsion. He swallowed back bile as he stepped even further into the shadows and flexed his blade hand on instinct. The soft _snik_ noise of a well-maintained blade calmed his nerves and he steadied his breathing, moving quickly with the panicked crowd to bump against Tamir - avoiding a swipe from the gore-covered knife as he did so - and continued walking.

Tamir would find the message. He had other targets to approach this day, less exposed targets.

...Or, well. Targets who were at least not smack in the middle of the Souk in the middle of the day.

The first of those two was Abu’l Nuqoud, Damas’ Merchant King. He lived in an opulent palace in the rich district, and Altaïr was 100% certain that the reason Tamir was able to so easily move his contraband goods through the city was because Abu’l allowed him to. A perk of being Brothers to the same Order.

The party he was hosting was- well. It was ostentatious, and the wine was flowing from the fountains. Altaïr gave the richly-colored red liquid a wide berth, nose wrinkling at the sharp tang of poison hidden deep beneath the aroma of pressed grapes. Nothing could be done for these people as they rushed the fountains and drank greedily of the tainted bounty, and with a heavy heart he exited the party to slip around the back of the palace.

Dispatching the guards lurking there was an easy task for someone of his skill set, and with noiseless footfalls he climbed the balcony to the second level.

Abu’l soon tired of watching his guests writhe in death throes as the poison hit their bloodstream, huffing softly to himself as he locked the door to the office space behind him. At this, Altaïr stood and approached from his hiding spot behind a screen to confront him.

“My Brothers and I have questions for you, and you hold the answers we seek,” he growled on a low breath.” Abu’l gasped and turned clumsily, his heavy girth making the movement of his drawing his sword cumbersome. Altaïr swiftly stopped the weapon from leaving its sheathe and cut it from the man’s sash so that it fell uselessly to the floor with a dull clang as he backed his prey into a chair. Abu’l was panting, terrified, and Altaïr trailed the tip of a throwing knife over his wart-spotted face.

“I- I don’t-“

“Tell me all that you know of Robert De Sablé and Al Mualim. If your words ring false, I will not stay my blade before you have provided the information I seek. Are we understood, Templar?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Good. Then let us begin.”

One of the many changes Altaïr had felt come over him during his Settling period, when his mind and body adjusted from their slumber to be aware of their half-Isu status - a status that, prior to his Awakening was fully human with minor and dormant genetic irregularities - was that his sense of time was impeccable. He could count, down to the nearest second, how much time had passed or what time it was relative to his location on the planet’s surface. Isu had a... unique relationship with time. It was not uncommon for dreams to be brief glimpses of future events in the most probable timelines. There were those that had honed their abilities, their gifts, to see proper visions. He had not been one of them in his first life. Had not been given the opportunity.

After ten minutes of interrogation with little progress - Abu’l was a voluminous mass of blubbering tears and sobs - his patience began to wear thin. If he delayed too much longer, he would be late for his meeting with Tamir.

“If you have nothing of further importance to say, then we are done here,” Altaïr said shortly. His hidden blade engaged with a soft _snik_ , Abu’l’s eyes widening almost comically with near-incoherent terror when he heard it.

“No, no please,” he whimpered. “The money. The money I sent away-“

“Was given to fuel your Order’s expenses. This I know. Tell me of Robert and Al Mualim.”

“We ten.” Abu’l coughed. “We came together in truce, seeking artifacts of Those Who Came Before. In the beginning, it was about keeping them from the wrong hands. Al Mualim was a traitor to his people simply by communing with us. The artifacts, they were worthless. Or so we thought. Robert and Al Mualim, they had the Gift. The ability to control them, a rare honor. And like our ancestors before us, they fought. Al Mualim withdrew to lick his wounds and Robert sent us out to prepare for our ascension. He went to retrieve the artifact, and instead found _you_.”

“I who am half Isu,” Altaïr snarled, blade driving home, “Am meant to protect humanity from its own folly. The Apple is not for the hands of men nor their minds. Only those with the blood of Those Who Came Before can see the heart of it.”

“I don’t- understand...” Abu’l whispered before his eyes became blank. He slumped in his seat and drew breath no longer.

“May you find the peace denied you,” Altaïr murmured respectfully, closing his eyes and standing. He cleaned his blade on the man’s robes and leapt from the window, making a neat dive into the deep lily pond below. Arms and legs kicking powerfully through the water with all the expertise of one raised on the shores of the Aegean and the Nile a few days’ journey away, he pulled himself onto the patio and then moved fast toward his meeting with Tamir.

The streets had mostly cleared as Altaïr walked swiftly into the poor district of Damascus. Tantalizing smells of hearth-cooked meat and bread wafted out of windows all around him, but he ignored such distractions in favor of ridding the area of its greatest source of terror.

He found Tamir at the meeting spot, the man pacing back and forth impatiently. Signing the letter ‘Abu’l Nuqoud’ had given the matter urgency and the timing meant that Tamir would not yet be aware of the man’s death until the next morning. No, this was perfect. They were alone in a shadowy place about halfway between their two centers of business, the location opulent yet secluded enough that it would be a plausible spot for Abu’l to suggest.

Unlike Abu’l, Tamir would not submit to interrogation at the point of a knife. He was a warrior, blood hot as his temper, and the assumption that he would be an easy mark was one that would infuriate him. Best to play to his ego. Many an arrogant man spouted their prideful secrets to showboat, and if Altaïr were to say the right words in the right order...

“If you’re waiting your Brother, he is indisposed this evening,” he said, stepping out of the shadows. Tamir turned quickly at the sound of his voice and sneered.

“Ah... Al Mualim’s finest hunting hound reduced to begging for scraps,” he laughed. “Come to kill me, Assassin?”

“In an honorable duel to the death,” Altaïr replied quietly, drawing his dagger and presenting it to clearly catch the moonlight to show it off. “Blade and skill against blade and skill. And with a short knife, brute strength is far less influential in a profitable outcome than intelligent wit and sharp reflexes.”

“I will play your game, Angel of Death,” Tamir spat, drawing his own knife. The same knife, in fact, that had killed the supplier at the Souk earlier that morning. Altaïr eyed the sharp curve warily and ducked away when Tamir swung the first blow, neatly stepping to the side and spinning to kick the other man in the shins. Tamir staggered at the blow with a pained grunt, face screwing up with pain as the audible sound of bone cracked, and Altaïr took the opportunity to slice across the defensive arm. The knife came back with a vicious and coordinated thrust, glancing off the metal plates covering his hidden blade bracer, and with a sharp kick at the fractured ankle he exploited the weakness further by driving his foot into the knee.

The leg crumpled, Tamir losing balance, and Altaïr thrust his dagger into the left shoulder and twisted. Tamir let out a shout and several curses, eyes blazing with fury as he was pinned to the sparse grass of the tiny garden.

“Concede,” Altaïr urged.

“An honorable duel, to the death,” the black arms merchant growled. “I believe that was the agreed upon deal.”

“And it enrages you when a man is not true to his word.”

“Your true prey is The Old Man of the Mountain,” Tamir sighed, relaxing as a smug smile appeared on his face. “That man has no allegiance from me. Ask, and I will answer if I can.”

“In what way did you come upon the artifact?”

“Old texts within our Order speaking of such an item, such an Apple, dating as far back as Caesar.”

“Yes, your Father of Understanding who in the end knew nothing,” Altaïr muttered, curling his lip. “A title stolen from one far older out of a Triad.”

“You know of our kind. Interesting. I had thought the Hidden Ones had died with Al Mualim’s escape from the Purge.”

“What Purge?” When Tamir didn’t answer he twisted the knife further. “ _What. Purge. Templar._ ” Tamir began laughing, an unpleasant sound as blood bubbled on his lips.

“We wiped out all your Kind in a single bonfire, and the few survivors did nothing to continue tradition!” He snickered.

“Go to your Afterlife and seek your Judgement there,” Altaïr snapped, letting go of his dagger hilt to ram his hidden blade into the man’s neck and severing the brainstem. He pulled the dagger out with a thick, wet noise and cleaned both it and his hidden blade on Tamir’s tunic before standing and moving toward the Bureau. It was late, and Jubair needed to be approached with as much caution as the man himself employed. Which was a _lot_.

-/\\-

“Ah, Altaïr,” Yassir called uneasily from the archives. Altaïr paused, head tilting slightly, as he analyzed the tone. “Good um, good hunting then?”

“Is there someone in there with you?” Altaïr called, concerned. His two bloodied Eagle feathers were stuffed into a pouch on his belt, the weight of them significant as he warily approached the entryway and froze. Yassir was backed far into a corner, eyes fixed on the massive [Bonelli’s] Eagle currently glaring at him with his feathers puffed in a display of threatening dominance.

“...In a manner of eh, of speaking.” Yassir stammered as Altaïr slowly approached the majestic creature. “I- I wouldn’t get too close if I were you.”

”His name is Darius,” Altaïr said decisively after a few moments, fond memories of a certain elderly gentleman with a similar glare coming to mind. Fitting, really, that the namesake of his latest Eagle Familiar was the First Proto-Assassin when he was trying to restore the honor of his Creed.

Whenever he started down the right Path, the direction his newest life was supposed to take, his Eagle would appear. Ikaros had come to Kassandra when she had been thrown from Taygetos, and Senu had come to Bayek the day he was made a full-fledged and pledged Medjay. Now, as he had taken down the first two of the Nine whose deaths were necessary to restore the Hidden Ones to their true purpose, Darius had appeared. If he worked hard enough to establish a relationship, he would eventually be able to look through his Eagle’s Eyes by extending his Isu Sixth Sense.

“You ah... know this creature then, I take it,” Yassir murmured uneasily, not approaching.

“In a way,” Altaïr replied, running soothing fingers lightly through the dark brown plumage that ran from the majestic bird’s head all the way down to his tail feathers. The puffed plumage responded quickly to his ministrations, smoothing out, and Darius made a soft chirping noise as he angled his head into the curve of his Master’s palm. He began grooming the speckled white feathers of his chest with a sharp dark gold beak, uninterested in the affairs of the humans now that he had found his Master. “He’s mine.”

“I wasn’t aware you were a keeper of birds of prey.”

“He’s a... recent acquisition.” Altaïr coughed, reaching into his pouch to withdraw the feathers and holding them up for inspection. “Two of the tree Marks I have come here to kill and extract information from are dead. The last, the Scholar. All I lack is a location from which to find him to begin the last of my assignments in Damas.”

“And luckily for you, your bird is perching on the intelligence one of our Brothers found this afternoon. The last piece of the puzzle, my friend.” Yassir swallowed, looking worried. “Altaïr. I wish you luck. It is best that you do not return to the Bureau, and that you ride immediately for Acre. Sleep, rest. Eat and drink. Do whatever you have to to prepare for tomorrow, and I will see to it that you will have a horse with full saddlebags waiting for you by the gate in the Poor District. I trust you have contacts in Acre?”

“A Templar Knight, actually, who wishes to see Robert brought to justice for his crimes against their Order,” Altaïr replied, smiling at Yassir’s look of surprise. “And this will shock you further, but the Knight... is a woman.”

“A _woman!?_ ”

Jubair al Kakim lead ‘The Illuminated.’ As head of Damascus’ Scholars, it was his duty to safeguard the texts and knowledge of those that had come before them so that those who came after would be well-educated. It was a past investment for the future they would never see, and all who were a part of such a tradition took great pride and were held in high regard in their work. The particular sect of scholars he led wore dark robes with short red tabards over top them, a black sash tied about their waists and their heads covered in dark cloth. In this respect the man was no different from his peers, but he made a small allowance in having gold thread woven in thin stripes through his sash to denote his status.

Construed as humility, Altaïr knew better as he crept through the unsuspecting city along the rooftops headed for a secluded courtyard. The other Assassins had gotten word of a series of planned book burnings to be carried out inside Damascus’ walls, a practice that all in their Order abhorred. They were to be the protectors, the keepers, of knowledge. To see it destroyed...

But this was also personal. Many of the texts Jubair sought to burn were done by Plato, Socrates. He had talked at length with both of them on many an occasion as Kassandra, and though the memories were faded the emotions behind them had yet to ease their ache. Altaïr’s own father had adored Masyaf’s library and would often be found among the archives; indeed, on many a night when Altaïr had had difficulty falling asleep as a young boy Omar had read to him. His present day reverence of text was a direct result of his father’s passion, and though Al Mualim had suppressed much of Omar’s Son in his quest to create the perfect pawn, now that Altaïr was free of him he felt those parts returning in full force.

To show restraint when not given cause to. To revere written word and respect for its keeping. To be just and fair, and to show empathy toward the oppressed. To be honorable in combat and clean in a painless kill. To recognize the strength and determination of a worthy foe and the comradeship of allies. All this and more he was relearning to see the value in as he skulked about taking his time to properly confront Al Mualim.

As Altaïr crept along the balcony overlooking the courtyard in which the first of the burnings was to take place, Jubair argued with one of his scholars. A young man of integrity who paid for his love of words by burning with them.

The scholars dispersed into the city, Altaïr hissing out a sharp command to Darius to track the true Jubair as he pulled the man from the fire and as many books as he could that weren’t a complete loss. Those were few and far between.

“Go,” the young man wheezed. He was badly burned, and dying, but he somehow found the strength to stumble over to the books. “The last thing I shall do is save these texts from the fires that killed me. Please, I beg of you. Stop him.”

“Be at peace when you are called, my Brother,” Altaïr murmured sadly, reverently, before taking to the rooftops once more.

Locating Darius was the easy part. The Eagle had a broad and dark wingspan, a striking presence in a clear sky, and the way he circled in an almost lazy manner as he tracked his prey made Altaïr grin wickedly. Jubair deserved to be stalked for a bit before dying.

And die he would. There was no information here that Altaïr could learn that would justify what had been done. Denying people illumination through literacy kept them in a state of subservience; unable to better themselves, they were kept under their own ignorance in a place of servitude. And a subservient populace was one easily manipulated by those such as the Templars or Al Mualim.

Darius let out a sharp cry and dove downward as Altaïr approached, steeply climbing again once he sensed that his master had acquired the target. Altaïr let out a long breath as he strung an arrow on his new predator bow, lined Jubair up in his sights... and let the arrow fly.

Jubair was struck directly in the neck, the damage total and complete in a way few target hits usually were. There was a sort of grim satisfaction in making a kill like that, and as the general mid-morning crowd ran screaming he dropped down into the street and collected the blood on a third feather before retrieving his arrow. Tucking the feather into the special pouch he had on his belt, he made for the designated gate.

Acre, and Maria, awaited his arrival.

”Three down, six to go, and I’ve only just begun,” he muttered as he swung into the saddle and set off at a swift pace. Damascus soon disappeared in the rocky landscape around them, swallowed by the hills.

A part of him knew that killing the Nine was only the first step of many, many more to come after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve introduced Altaïr’s Eagle. Now, they all have one, and I’m just going to post the names, gender, and type of Eagle down here even though I’ll be introducing Ezio’s, Arno’s, and Desmond’s properly.
> 
> All of the Eagle types have to be region specific...  
> \- Kassandra: Ikaros (M), Golden.  
> \- Bayek: Senu (F), Steppe.  
> \- Altaïr: Darius (M), Bonelli’s.  
> \- Ezio: Minerva (F), Golden.  
> \- Edward: Caroline (F), White-Tailed.  
> \- Ratonhnaké:ton: Connor (M), Bald.  
> \- Arno: Marianne (F), Short-Toed.  
> \- Evie: Jacob (M), Pallas’ Fish (India).  
> \- Desmond: Nike (F), Golden.


	22. Ezio’s Journey II: Fireworks Bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY VALHALLA RELEASE!!! HYPED!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Housekeeping Notes: Made a small change in Desmond's introductory chapter pertaining to the Staff of Hermes. In short, handed it over to Gaius Cassius after the Ides of March for reasons that won't come to light for a little while yet. I simply wanted people to be aware of continuity change for when it gets brought up later. 
> 
> Is this choice made with great thought and care over the seriousness of the plot? Lol no.
> 
> On another continuity note, this one to do with canon, Sofia Sartor was born in 1476. I moved that back to 1461 so that she was the same age as Claudia, which is two years younger than Ezio rather than seventeen. This is because a) Claudia needs a gal pal who is also good with a knife and b) because Ezio deserves happiness and he should get a chance to actually raise his kids instead of dying on a park bench wondering if they’d be okay. And c) being that he and Sofia seemed happy together because they understood one another in a way others didn’t. They understood the wariness, so moving up the time table for their meeting when she lived part of her childhood in Venice was very easy to do.

“You’re awfully quiet over there Ezio,” Leonardo commented as they finished loading his cart with the projects he was to take with him to Venezia. Most of his things were being left in Monteriggioni, where he had an untaxed addition on the villa itself with a wonderful view of the gardens and had practically been adopted into his patron’s family, but his current projects were coming with him.

He had been given a commission in Venice, and as Ezio’s task of tracking allies of the Pazzi had left Tuscany and pointed in the direction of the floating city they had decided to procure passes together. Petruccio, who was now seventeen and faring far better with his respiratory condition though it was likely he would continue to have attacks for the rest of his life, was only too happy to accompany his mentor to Venice. The young man was a prodigious painter, clever and creative, and he approached all of Leonardo’s suggested schemes with a bright enthusiasm.

He was also good at keeping secrets. It had been Claudia who had quietly pointed out to Ezio that he was aware his brother was more than he said he was but didn’t understand why, and with Giovanni determined to keep Petruccio in the dark when it came to Assassins Ezio had decided to confide in him fully. In effect, all of his siblings were aware of his existential condition including Leonardo - who was sort of like that strange cousin you ended up taking care of because they were orphaned - and it gave him some peace that he didn’t have to pretend to be any less than what he truly was when around them.

“Ezio!” Petruccio called from the door of Leonardo’s studio, jerking him out of his melancholy thoughts. “There’s something very heavy back here and we need your help. Also, I think Leonardo was trying to get your attention.”

“Were you?” Ezio asked absently, moving to help his younger brother. “I’m sorry, Leo.”

“You seem to have a lot on your mind,” Leonardo reiterated the general sentiment of his previous statement and shrugged.

“I’m simply looking forward to being far enough away from certain... persons... that I don’t have to constantly be looking over my shoulder at all times,” Ezio sighed. “It sounds... peaceful.”

“Federico has taken the opportunity to prepare my studio for me in the way he knows I appreciate it to be prepared. The space was converted from a boarding house, and there are many empty rooms above the workshop. I gave permission for him to establish an Assassin Bureau above it, and you will have a decent place to rest while in Venezia. Any Assassin that comes there on business will.”

“You are truly a saint among our scarce allies my friend. A true scholar.”

“I know.”

The problem was that Venice was controlled by the Templars. They held most of the seats on the Council of Ten and the Doge himself was a member of the Order. For Ezio to root out and dismantle the Templar grasp over Italy, he would have to unseat some of the most powerful and influential men of the region. No matter. He’d done it several times before and he was now simply doing it again. The tiny rats working for their masters were never much worth anyone’s time to begin with.

“Have you been sleeping well?” Leonardo asked as they finished loading the cart and settled in for the journey, Petruccio sitting in the back with his elder brother and mentor on the seat. Well, Leonardo was sitting. Ezio was sort of slouching down, hence the concern.

“I have been having dreams of late in which I am flying,” Ezio said tiredly. “The exhilaration is like nothing known to mortal man, and...” his shoulders slumped. “I miss it.”

“You saw the flying machine I am devising?”

“...Yes...”

“You will be the first to test it. Let you feel the wind and the sun.”

“Thank you, amico mio. It is appreciated.”

For the most part the road was quiet, the skies clear, and the travel easy. This only heightened Ezio’s suspicions that there was something sinister afoot, and sure enough about five hours in the sharp cry of an Eagle echoed through the mountain pass.

“What is that?” Petruccio asked, squinting.

“Minerva, my Eagle,” Ezio murmured, instantly on the alert. “She sees something that worries her.”

“Like what?”

“Like...” Ezio inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, reaching out and connecting with his Eagle Sense. He felt Minerva register his request and accept, and when he blinked open his eyes he was seeing through hers. Far below, he could see their cart and much farther down the path were a group of rapidly-approaching highwaymen. Well, mercenaries who had been hired to act as highwaymen anyway. “Petruccio, switch places with me. You have an Assassin’s reflexes. Take the reins, and don’t spare the horses.”

“...Yeah, sure thing Fratello,” Petruccio stammered as he scrambled onto the seat Ezio had moments before vacated. The cart picked up speed just as the men came around the bend in the road. Ezio blinked at that and shook his head slightly. While he was certain it was merely a habit Petruccio had picked up from the Assassins, calling someone your brother, _Petruccio_ only did it when Ezio exhibited some more... Eagle’s Kin traits than he usually did. Almost as if he were reminding him the present was the here and now. And... it actually did ground him on most occasions.

...Yeah. He had the best siblings this time around. Top notch. (Of course, when the sample pool was two lives as an only child, a life he couldn’t even remember, and the disaster that had been Stentor and Alexios as brothers...)

The first mercenary approached the cart and Ezio lunged forward on his toes. The man yelped in surprise and fell from his saddle, one foot caught in the stirrup as he was dragged behind his mount. Three more men approached, leaping onto the back carriage top, and were met with swift and exacting retribution for their hubris.

More and more kept coming, easily gaining on the carriage, and Ezio groaned.

“Speed up!” He shouted, grunting as five men jumped onto the back of the carriage and engaged him in combat.

“There are laws against reckless endangerment!” Petruccio snapped.

“Reckless- _does it look like I’m reasonably endangered back here!?_ ”

“Pater noster, qui es in caelis...” Leonardo - not in any way religious - murmured, making the sign of the cross and closing his eyes at a particularly wet _shunk_ noise as Ezio’s hidden blade slid home.

”Go faster!”

“Look, unlike the _rest_ of our family, I am a responsible driver, and- _Mio Dio!_ ”

“No swearing!”

“They’re shooting at us!” Petruccio shouted, panicked, as they drove through a small mountain village with archers on the roof. “ _With flaming arrows!_ ”

“Yes, _thank you Fratellino! I noticed!_ ”

“All right, enough!” Leonardo snapped, taking the reins. “ _I’m_ driving!” The cart immediately picked up speed, careening wildly across the road, and Ezio let out a yelp as he was thrown over the side. He ended up clinging to the edge for dear life, wide-eyed and terrified, as their pursuers fell back and eventually left them be. “Leo! You drive worse than _Madre!_ ”

“And she’s the _worst_ ,” Petruccio groaned, clutching at his stomach looking as if he were going to be sick. 

Leonardo didn’t slow the cart until they were well out of harm’s way, the glistening waters of Forli and the Romagna countryside in sight at the end of the pass. With a grunt, Ezio pried his fingers out of their clenched grip and let himself fall onto the ground with a dull thud, laying there a few moments to recover from the feeling of near death before hauling himself to his feet. It seemed he’d landed on the only dry patch of ground for miles.

“How do these people _live_ in these conditions?” Petruccio asked, eyeing his soggy boots distastefully as he landed in a puddle. “My feet would have so many sores on them if I lived here...”

“They must either go barefoot or wear open sandals to avoid the problem,” Leonardo suggested with a shrug. “I’m not that concerned. Whatever they do, works. They’re used to this environment.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not miserable,” Ezio murmured, eyeing a man scraping mud from his feet with a scowl a few paces off.

They carefully led the horses through the mud by the reins, over several stone bridges, and finally onto the boardwalk planks made of rotting wood. Just ahead of them a ship waited, but off to the side...

“I’m going to have to help her, aren’t I?” Ezio sighed, wincing as the angry ginger-haired woman kept up a steady stream of shouting.

“Yes,” Leonardo laughed. “I do not envy you, my friend. Now, meet us on the ship, and Petruccio and I will get the equipment loaded in the meantime.” There was a pause as he scanned the area and pointed to a gondola bobbing on the water. “I believe your white horse is close at hand.”

“Enjoy this while it lasts, because I won’t let you get away with it for very long,” Ezio warned. “This is your only opportunity.”

“I highly doubt that,” Petruccio snickered, merely sticking out his tongue when Ezio glared at him, which in return felicitated a rude hand gesture in response. “Have fun!”

“Fun,” Ezio grumbled as he maneuvered the gondola through the murky waters. What type of self-respecting woman - or man, for that matter - didn’t know how to swim living in a wetlands!? Being a noble was no excuse; having money did not make one immune to the possibility of drowning. “Madonna, do you require assistance?”

“Oh you’re good,” the woman replied after a few precious seconds of lovely silence, a smirk resting lightly on deep berry-red lips. “I bet the girls like that.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ezio said truthfully as he helped her into the gondola. “I was in a relationship with the woman my family was arranging for me to marry, but that ended five years ago. My path took an unexpected turn and she was not meant to follow it.” He paused, dark braids and deep brown eyes shimmering through his memory as he imagined Maria’s body pressed against his own, both of them lazy from love-making and reveling in the luxuries of a sleepy cuddle. He ached again for that kind of connection to another living being, remembering vaguely Aya or Natakas offering the same refuge and safety in their understanding and unconditional love and wishing to have it once again.

He shook himself slightly out of his reveries to find the noblewoman watching him with a raised eyebrow.

“I miss it,” he confessed honestly. “And you, Madonna...”

“Sforza, but you can call me Caterina,” she replied with a soft smile.

“Ezio Auditore. So this is your domain then, Caterina? If I read the reports correctly, you control the region now that your husband is dead.”

“What reports would those be?” She said, brushing a curl behind her ear.

“That you are an ally of my Order and that you had your husband killed because he belonged to another.” A pause. “...Among other... things...”

“Is there any way I can repay you, Messere Ezio?” Caterina asked as she set foot on the boardwalk, he following close behind.

“Only that your city remain a haven to any of my Brothers or Sisters in need,” Ezio said with a short bow, straightening with a smile. “A pleasure meeting your acquaintance, Madonna. Safe journey home.” With that, he presented his pass to the captain and boarded the ship.

“Your next conquest?” Petruccio asked with a smirk. It faded when Ezio leveled a tired gaze upon him.

“I have no conquests, young one. Only memories.” He walked to the opposite side of the ship and leant on the side, staring pensively out over the water as if envisioning Venice already in sight. “Just memories of other times, neither more good nor bad. Just... there.”

-/\\-

Alvise had been sent by Leonardo’s patron, and boy was the man over-eager to please. He was more than insistent in giving them a quick tour of the nearby areas in the district, and especially intent on ignoring the darker undertones of regular everyday life.

Truthfully, Ezio was tuning him out. He had heard much of Venezia from the Polos, and apparently not much had changed in the meantime. The guards were still bullies, the poor scavenged to make a living, and the rich enjoyed opulence. All of the buildings were at least fifty years old if not older with new additions half-built crammed into every available space - or more likely than not knocking something else down to make room - and what he hadn’t heard in a past life he had read in Federico’s letters.

The air was humid and stank of polluted waters, any waste going into the canals and making any fish caught from them or water drawn unsafe for consumption. Minerva wheeled about almost lazily in the sky, unwilling to make a dive for what prey she could spot, and with a sigh Ezio determined that he’d have to give her scraps for sustenance because she was wary of ingesting the local diseased rodent population.

Oh, sure. Firenze had its issues too, of that there was no doubt. The streets were dusty and every time it rained the flagstones ended up covered in a slippery layer of mud, the waters of the Arno were about on par for quality with those of the Venetian canals, and crime either came from warring political factions divided by family or from Volpe’s Thieves Guild. From what Ezio had heard, Antonio had some problems running such a guild in Venice due to enforcement regulations.

Leonardo paused halfway through the tour to approach the window of a shop, eyes drawn to a delicate model for sketching, and Ezio smiled despite himself. The object itself was a work of art in the way that it captured smooth joint movement despite its size, the wooden workmanship superb.

“Would you like me to buy it for you, Leo? I know your purse is buried somewhere in all of your equipment.”

“Grazie, Ezio. That would be wonderful. Uh- I can pay you back when-“

“You’ve given us a Bureau, the least I can do is get a modeling figurine,” Ezio countered, pausing as he reached for his purse to scowl. “Federico, don’t even think about it. I _will_ break your wrist if you even try to snatch my money.”

“You take the fun out of everything,” Federico pouted, sauntering out of the shadowy alcove with a young woman in tow. She had short dark hair and wore urchin rags, dressed like one of Antonio’s thieves. “This is Rosa. How, exactly, did you know that I was behind you?” He ruffled Petruccio’s hair with a grin as Ezio paid for the figurine from the vendor and they continued walking, ignoring their baffled guide.

“You were too quiet,” Ezio explained off-handedly. “Where there is supposed to be noise in the street behind me all I heard was silence.”

“You knew I was there. Because I was too quiet,” Federico summed up flatly, raising an eyebrow. Ezio nodded. He sighed, throwing up his hands. “Of course I was. If I make too much noise, you know I’m there. If I make too little, you know. What am I supposed to do with you, walk the metaphorical _sound tightrope!?_ ”

“Pretty much, yes,” Ezio chuckled, following Leonardo into the workshop and whistling. “Leonardo, now this is living in _style_.”

“Plenty of room for my projects, and perhaps any that my pupils might concoct as well,” Leonardo said suggestively with a smile, casting a meaningful glance at Petruccio as the boy ducked his head at the sheer amount of stifling elder brother pride and muttered something about finding a place to stay, disappearing into a side room where he could set down his things. An awkward silence settled over the room, and with a sharp jab of his finger toward the stairs Leonardo indicated that they should conduct their business freely without feeling they were leaving him out of something in his own space.

Climbing the steps, they entered into a large communal room with far smaller bedrooms tacked on around the circular space. In the center of the room was a table with a model of Venice upon it, laid out in excruciating detail. On the far wall was a map of Italy and the surrounding regions. One of the bedrooms had been converted into a makeshift armory of sorts, swords and bows and spare hidden blades arrayed neatly along racks and on a narrow table. Shuttered windows were currently open to let in a decent amount of light, and a copious amount of unlit candles dotted every available surface. Comfortable, if a bit tight of a fit.

“I must commend you on getting this place ready for us, Federico,” Ezio murmured. “Where is the thieves guild located?”

“The building in the model with a splash of green paint on it,” Rosa said with a smile. “This building is the one with the red splash. I’m to be your... adjutant with them as you work from this location. Federico and I work... well... together.”

“Because you’re lovers,” Ezio said casually, raising an eyebrow at the look of surprise on Rosa’s face and the resigned annoyance on Federico’s. “What?”

“You told him about us?” Rosa asked.

“My brother is... _scarily_... observant,” Federico sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “There must have been some body language he picked up on or something.” He scraped at the scraggly barely-there beard he had managed to grow and rolled his eyes. “Drives me crazy half the time, but it’s useful for work. Well, there’s not much we can do tonight without scouting tomorrow, so I suggest you rest well and the pair of us will take to the rooftops early in the morning.”

“Sounds like a plan. Which eh...?”

“Any room except that one,” Federico said with a knowing grin, pointing out the spoken for room mentioned. Ezio nodded and trudged to the only room next to the staircase that had an exterior window in it, dropping his small bag at the end of the bed and unhooking the shutters. Minerva immediately flew inside and perched on the headboard, head tilting and chirping inquisitively as she ruffled her golden feathers and preened.

Smiling, Ezio rifled about in his bag and withdrew an old bow. He loosened the drawstring and then slung it from a rusty hook in a ceiling beam, thus creating a perfect makeshift perch for his feathered friend, and Minerva immediately flew onto it. Settling onto the bed and loosely crossing his legs at the ankles, he spent a great deal of time watching Venezia from dusk until long after dark. Eyeing Minerva comfortably perched on full display without needing to hide, he let out a content sigh and laced his fingers behind his head.

Her being able to freely exist in the center of the room was just a physical manifestation of Ezio’s ability to be himself without hiding his abilities from others. Here, they didn’t care if he had an uncanny ability to utilize his Isu Sense. It was just accepted. There were no pressures to be something - someone - he wasn’t. Or, more accurately, no longer was because he was someone new.

“I think we’re going to like it here, Minerva.”

-/\\-

The next day - and many subsequent days after - found the Fratelli Auditore on the rooftops in their Master Assassin Robes as Federico helped Ezio learn the paths and viewpoints of the city. Federico had assassinated Emilio Barbarigo in his Palazzo della Seta just days prior to Ezio’s arrival in Venice for crimes against the general populace in the merchant district, the Thieves Guild moving into the opulent fortress-like building after he was gone, and now they had their sights set on following Carlo Grimaldi - a known member of both the Venetian Council of Ten and the Templar Rite.

Carlo was a general dogsbody for the Council of Ten and relatively low on the Templar Totem Pole, but because he was a dogsbody he was privy to a wide range of interconnected information that they couldn’t have collected from each separate Templar target in Venezia. Nothing happened in the city without his being aware of it, so studying his movements was key to gaining vital intelligence before it was too late. 

Little came of their endeavors as the targets were well-guarded at all times, so the Assassins settled in for a long wait. They could afford to be patient if it meant that they got all of their men, and it wasn’t as if Federico had anywhere else to be. His job was to watch over Venice and maintain a presence there, and that was what he was going to do.

Ezio, on the other hand, received a letter once a month from their father requesting a status update, and it was clear that he was growing increasingly frustrated with each polite and respectful ‘when I have something you’ll be the first to know’ reply Ezio sent back.

Following Carlo wasn’t practical. Being spotted on a tail one too many times would make the man suspicious, and on top of that it was downright boring. Spending a year of having Minerva stalk him while Ezio bribed a steady string of stall owners spaced equally along his route was the best course of action, and when that was over and done with they would merely collect their reports at the end of the day and read through them. Efficiency was key.

However.

Free time was the bane of Ezio’s existence. He had never been a man of idle hands, and neither had his past lives. Helping Leonardo and Petruccio perfect their flying machine only occupied so much of his time, and after collecting the last of the codex pages from the surrounding regions he had to concede that there were a few in enemy hands that he’d have to hunt for.

With nothing else to do, he took to loitering around the markets and prowling the city at night. Federico likened him to a caged eagle that needed to stretch its wings and Ezio hated that the description fit so well. He stalked the darkness of evening looking for people in need of protection; within two months Venice was all but assault free. Of course, sometimes the assaulters fought back...

...Which was how he fell into someone’s garden in the middle of the night with an almighty crash after falling off a trellis, a nasty cut in his eyebrow and what was sure to be a black eye already forming.

“That looked like it hurt,” a voice commented mildly off to the side. Ezio whirled around only to freeze when he spotted a young woman with flaming red hair and pale blue-green eyes eyeing him amusedly from a stone bench. “Hm. Let me guess. Jealous husband catch you with his wife?”

“More like a young woman being groped by an old man who had _way_ too many armed guards,” Ezio groaned, rising to a stand and dusting himself off. “Sorry for commandeering your garden, uh...?”

“Sartor. Sofia, Sartor.” Sofia raised an eyebrow.

“Ezio Auditore da Firenze. And yes, I know, I’m far from home.”

“Not as far as I am. I was born and raised in Constantinople until last July? When... when the Ottomans invaded Otranto.” Her face fell slightly. “My father was worried as we’re Catholic, so he closed his book shop and moved our entire family back to Venice. And now it’s January and cold. And... I hate it here.”

“It’s not the nicest of places when you’re homesick,” Ezio laughed. He nodded toward the empty spot on the bench. “May I?”

“Mm. Feel free.”

“Grazie.” He sat with a slight grunt and felt at his eyebrow with a wince. “Ah. That’s going to leave a mark. Luckily my eyebrow will hide the scar. Don’t need another one of those.”

“And you got the first one defending a young maiden’s honor, I assume,” Sofia chuckled.

“Ah... not exactly. Youthful mistakes. The usual. You don’t want to know.”

“Isn’t that for me to decide?” She teased playfully, sighing as Carnevale’s fireworks exploded in the sky. “Oh, but that does look fun...”

“Then why not go?” Ezio asked.

“Haven’t you heard? It’s dangerous for a young woman to go anywhere at night unaccompanied. And I have no friends. Making them in the... clique, of Venice has proved difficult.”

“Go and find your favorite dress,” Ezio said with a laugh. “I’ll be back.”

“Remind me again why _you_ wanting to impress a woman includes _me_ ,” Claudia muttered as she let Ezio drag her down the street toward the Sartor house. Petruccio, Leonardo, Federico, and Rosa were following behind with a sort of fascinated bemusement.

“I don’t want to _impress her_ ,” Ezio sighed. “But I also know it doesn’t look good when a strange man shows up at your door asking to take your daughter to Carnevale unless he’s with a group that has other women in it.”

“Then let Rosa come. You asked me to Venezia to sort out your truly atrocious finances, not to help you get a date.”

“She needs _friends_ , Claudia, not...” Ezio cruised to a halt and ran a hand down his face. “She’s a stranger in this city just as much as we are. And she and you, you appear the same age. I was... sort of hoping... that you’d become companions to one another. That way... neither of you would be so lonely in this city while you’re here.” Claudia’s face softened as she bit her lip.

“This is important to you, isn’t it?” She asked quietly. He hung his head and nodded. “You should have led with that, you imbecile. Come on.” They made their way to the front door and after brief hesitation the Ezio knocked. It swung open to reveal a man about the same age as Mario, frowning at them.

“Yes?”

“We’re here for Signorina Sofia Sartor,” Ezio said, sketching a light bow that allowed the light spilling from the door to reveal Federico, Rosa, Petruccio, and Leonardo behind them. “My sister and Brothers were wondering if she would join us for Carnevale.”

“All of you will be going?” Messere Sartor asked for clarification.

“Yes.”

“Then I have no issue with it.” He leant away from the door to call up the stairs. “Sofia!” She must have been on the stairs listening in, because she was hitting the landing in a beautiful dress, pecking her father on the cheek, and dashing outside in a matter of seconds. As soon as the door closed she turned to the group and grinned.

“When you said you had an idea, I wasn’t aware you’d find such a simple solution,” she chuckled. Ezio shrugged.

“Sofia, this is my sister, Claudia...” he began pointing to each person in turn. “My brothers Federico and Petruccio, our family friend Leonardo, and of course, Federico’s... eh... _muse_ , Rosa.”

“Pleasure, Rosa muttered, knocking Ezio in the ribs as she stepped forward. It was a rare occasion that she herself was wearing a dress, but it seemed that she was in a festive mood because she didn’t look ill at ease in it. If anything, she looked excited. Then again, they all did.

“How did you meet Ezio then, Sofia?” Federico asked curiously as they walked toward the main festivities.

“He fell into my garden after picking a fight with the wrong philanderer,” Sofia replied dryly. Federico snorted and burst out laughing.

“I think I like her, fratellino. She’ll fit right in with our little mismatched friend group.”

“Ignore him, it’s what I do,” Claudia suggested with a giggle, wrapping her arm around Sofia’s. They all exchanged light get-to-know-you information back and forth, and when they entered the main event they all split off to investigate whatever interested them. All but two.

“Are you stalking me now?” Sofia asked, raising an eyebrow. Ezio smirked.

“I _did_ promise your father we were going _together_ as a group,” he reminded her. “It seems wrong to betray that trust. After all, Carnevale lasts a month. If we would like to attend at any other time, first impressions are crucial.”

“A tactician,” she said with a nod, patting the center of his chest with a hand unconcernedly. “You let me worry about my father. He’s really quite easy to handle. For now, we should enjoy the party.”

“You read my mind...”

That evening they participated in the games together and sampled the food offered, tasting wine and dancing. Sofia introduced Claudia to the women she had met in passing among higher society and Claudia in turn used her winning personality to charm themselves into the group, and while that was occurring Ezio watched Federico and Rosa play off of each other like a perfect matching set of mischief mates. If one didn’t start something, the other did. Petruccio was kept busy trailing after Leonardo and fending off potential patrons desperate for his art but unwilling to pay, Leonardo marveling at Carnevale and entirely oblivious to his efforts.

“Still hate Venice?” Ezio asked as Sofia rejoined him against the stone railing bordering one of the canals. She turned to him, face flushed from laughter, and smiled as she bumped her shoulder against his.

“I think I could start to like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> Cattivi - Italian; Villains  
> (please note this is from Google translate. More correct interpretations are welcome if given).
> 
> It is my headcanon that, if you were to stick the Auditore family in a minivan in rush hour city traffic, the one to snap and exhibit the worst road rage would be Maria. It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. Oh, and you’re welcome to the mental image of Maria at the wheel face red with fury, Giovanni praying in the passenger seat, Ezio and Federico climbing over one another trying to get their seatbelts on, Leonardo updating his will, Petruccio crying, Claudia not concerned in the slightest reading a book, and... Uncle Mario, shoved into the boot of the minivan wishing he were somewhere else than at the mercy of his sister in law. Volpe is clinging on to the roof for dear life and they have no idea he’s there.


	23. Arno's Journey II: The Enemy Within

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarity of storytelling; “Fox Tales” is more of a companion piece to “Eagle’s Kin” than an actual sequel, filling in missing bits and pieces of behind the scenes if you will. I had to split the narrative in this way because the main protagonist in “Fox Tales” will become especially important later, but working him into the narrative with a full introduction every single time he makes a five minute pop-in would be exhausting. 
> 
> It is highly recommended that you at least read through chapter eight to fill in the blanks.

An Eagle shrieked overhead and Arno allowed himself a small smile as he ducked at the last second to avoid Marianne’s divebombing. Élise let out a soft yelp of surprise and dove toward the ground, lifting her scarlet head warily when the young bird landed on her Master’s outstretched arm and began preening her feathers.

“She’s yours?” Élise asked warily.

“Marianne, Élise. Élise, Marianne. She’s been my eyes, searching for Germain. However... this meeting with Mirabeau, at his house.” He frowned. “It sits ill with me, such a secluded locale. The Café was different.”

“Afraid I’ll try something?” She asked acerbically as Marianne shook out her wings and lifted off again, climbing for height and settling to perch on a flag pole as they entered the door to the man’s house.

“No. But I’m afraid that, if someone were to follow us, leading them to the home of the Mentor of my Order isn’t such a smart plan.”

“Agreed, but we have no choice. And... is Bellec to be joining us this afternoon?”

“Bellec doesn’t agree with either myself or Mirabeau. So, no. You won’t be seeing him again. He-“ Arno went entirely, _eerily_ , still, nostrils flaring as his eyes seemed to burn a pure molten gold for a few moments. “It’s too quiet. The smell of death is in this house.”

“Death? What- Arno!” Élise protested, chasing after him as he suddenly raced up the staircase at full tilt. She managed to catch up only when they reached Mirabeau’s bedroom, paling when she found her oldest friend bending over the lifeless body of the man in question where he lay dead upon his bed. “God in Heaven...”

“He was poisoned,” Arno said grimly, producing the same sort of pin that had killed her father. “But whoever it was wanted the Assassins to think it was the rogue Templar Sect. Most likely, they were even trying to frame _you_. If we want to continue this alliance we’ll have to find the true perpetrator and bring them to justice. He blinked slowly, a long breath accompanying the action, and he began scanning the floor of the room with such an intensity that it left no doubt in Élise’s mind that he was using his Sight once more. He’d done that as a child, scaring the maids, but she’d never had cause to regard such a gift with anything other than fascination. The idea that the material world could fall away into a dimension of smoke and shadow, the solidity of walls and floors more of a skeletal blueprint than an obstruction to the senses, was entirely baffling and fantastic.

Arno stalked out of the room, following what was obviously some sort of trail only he could see, and she in turn followed him. Despite the tedium of tracking they were making decent time, moving through crowds and alleys and parks. He stopped more than once, something seeming to dually puzzle and worry him, and Élise soon found out why when they stopped at the front steps of Notre-Dame.

“Did he... _climb?_ ” She asked incredulously. Arno nodded, darkness clouding his expression, and she swallowed. “It seems both our Orders had their fair share of rats then.”

“Which is concerning. Is this merely a rogue party unhappy with the temporary Assassin-Templar union, or is this a larger conspiracy in league with Germain?”

“Only one way to find out. But um... I can’t follow up there.”

“Nor would I expect you to. I want you to guard the doors of the cathedral in case he slipped inside looking to sneak past us.”

“Is that likely?”

“It’s what I would do,” Arno sighed, shifting his shoulders about to loosen them before taking a running start and leaping onto the side of the building. He clung like a squirrel to the bark of a tree, swiftly moving upward at a dizzying pace, and Élise sighed.

_Specimen._

”Bad Élise,” she chastised herself. He might have been her childhood friend, but he was an Assassin now, and this treaty could not last. “Guard the door.”

“I have concerns,” Arno huffed. Marianne chirped sympathetically from her perch on top of a gargoyle and shook out her feathers. “Stay here. You’re well known among my Brothers and Sisters. The last thing I need is to stalk prey who knows I’m coming.” After receiving another chirp, he eased himself over the edge of the wall and onto the roof, creeping low in a crouch on soft-soled boots. A glittering trail of dusty golden footprints beckoned to him out of the inky smoke and he followed warily, his intuition recognizing something that his conscious thoughts couldn’t quite grasp. At the end of the roof, his robes billowing in the breeze of a dusk thunderstorm, crouched Bellec.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t be you, but I am also not surprised,” Arno murmured sadly. Bellec stood from his perch with a grunt at the stiffness and shrugged.

“I came here for our confrontation, high above Paris under only the eyes of God,” Came the gruff response. “Or some other such nonsense. It felt fitting. And as you can see, I was waiting for you. Not running.”

“Why?”

“Out of all who I could convince to understand, you are the only one who could truly grasp what I was trying to prevent.” Bellec took slow, careful steps away from the ledge and eased his stride on the wider surface of the roof. “You’ve once stood where now _I_ stand.”

“Mirabeau was not another Al Mualim, Bellec,” Arno sighed tiredly. “He never would have become him. You forget that, right now in the Americas, Templars and Assassins are working together to keep the influence of the Old World out of their new country. And that I myself am leading the Assassin side of that peace, my own father the other.”

“Élise De La Serre is a spoiled child too young and immature for the power she has been given,” Bellec snapped.

“She is. But she’ll grow. Everyone tempers with experience. Her father was a good man, a respectable man. He knew not what I was when he took me in, yet he kept me when he found out. Ulterior motives aside, I had every opportunity in that house to rid the Templars of their Grandmaster as a child and I did not. I found him a decent man. And he taught his daughter to be a decent woman. The respect will come with age.”

“I cannot respect a man who breaks bread with his enemies.” Arno’s eyes narrowed as Bellec drew his sword, the simple flick of his hidden blade bringing the man up short.

“Be very careful before making accusations you can’t take back, Pierre,” Arno snarled, voice low. To his credit, the only outward sign of fear Bellec gave to the gauntlet being thrown was to swallow and blink.

“I do what I must. Have you not, in all your lives, expressed the value of standing behind one’s beliefs? False Compromise upon your own ideals when you still stand behind them is the coward’s way.” The sword drew entirely from the sheath, flashing dully in the faint light of the stained glass windows, and Arno’s shoulders slumped.

“You’re willing to stand by your beliefs to the death?”

“I am.” Bellec knelt onto the stone and presented his sword with bowed head. “And I am prepared for it.”

“A duel,” Arno countered, drawing his own weapon. “I’ll grant you the respect of dying with your blade in your hands. A warrior’s death. I owe you that much, and I owe it to my father.”

“Thank you.”

Élise gasped as Arno and Bellec came into view, dueling on the roof of Notre-Dame. Bellec was fighting for his very life, a master swordsman who was still enough in his prime to make it a hazardous event for Arno. The dull glint of unpolished but well-kept swords made an elegant and deadly movement with each flash of lightning that lit the cloud-covered sky above, and against her more stoic tendencies she covered her mouth with her hands as rain began to pour down and made the roof tiles of the cathedral slick. Several times, both men slipped.

After several minutes, Arno pushed Bellec through one of the large round windows into the church itself. Élise raced to the door and fought with the lock on the iron gates before giving up and breaking it off with a slice of her sword. She arrived to Arno giving Bellec his last rites, folding his hands over his sword on his chest and standing with a heavy sigh.

“You had no choice,” she said quietly.

“He wanted a warrior’s death,” Arno whispered. “And I gave it to him. It was the least I could do.”

“Will he have a burial?”

“At my insistence early on when our Creed was founded, we burn our dead so they our bodies will not fall into the hands of the enemy.” There was a pause. “A practice the Templars should engage in as well, Élise. It’s a precaution that makes sense with... well. I don’t rightly know why it’s important to do it, but I do know that we should. Echoes of my life among the Isu, I suppose. Information I retained as instinct rather than knowledge.”

“Funeral pyre?”

“Yes. But... separate to Mirabeau. While Bellec maintained his personal honor he betrayed our Brotherhood.” Without another word he stooped and slung Bellec’s body over his shoulder, taking care to make it look like he was drunk rather than dead in case they were stopped in the street, and walked out. Élise hesitated before sprinting to catch up. She didn’t truly feel it was her place to be here, but... he was still her friend, and he seemed to take comfort from the silent support of her presence.

-/\\-

“Our Mentor is dead, and in his death we have lost two of our Council,” Sophie Trenet said crisply. Arno said nothing, merely stood in the center of their Order’s ornate underground lobby with hands clasped in front of him and head bowed. “And now his Right Hand stands before us with the Templar Would-Be Grandmaster at his side.”

“It wasn’t his fault!” Élise snapped. The other two remaining but less senior members of the council, Hervé Quemar and Guillaume Beylier, frowned at her. But it was Trenet who glared at being interrupted. Élise refused to step down. “He escorted me to Monsieur Mirabeau’s home, as had been arranged, and he was to stay as insurance of Mirabeau’s safety. I’m sure Mirabeau had a ledger or some such thing detailing his meetings.

“When we arrived, he was dead, laid out on his bed as if asleep. After searching, we found a Templar pin with poison. The same kind of pin that killed my father, the craftsmanship striking heavily of Germain’s skill. Arno...” here she paused and frowned slightly. “I make the assumption that the trail you followed none else could see was done through your Sight. And following this trail, we found Monsieur Bellec-“

“Élise, please,” Arno said quietly, head still bowed and hands still clasped. “They already know what happened. But now that Mirabeau’s killer is still dead, they look to me for blame regardless of my actual guilt.” It was now that he raised his head to reveal deep brown eyes glittering with soft-glowing golden dust, and Élise shivered as she took a step away from his shadow and stared at it with fascination.

In the light the of the roaring fires, wings seemed to melt form his shadow and spread behind him. None formed on his person, but they shook themselves out and spanned to their full glory on the wall behind him. The Council all took an involuntary step back as well.

“Finally stretching your wings are we, old friend?” An amused voice called from the entry. A dripping wet but good-spirited man stepped through and circled around to join the Council, and to Élise’s surprise they showed deference to him.

“Cassius Foxe,” Trenet murmured respectfully. “When you left for the colonies ten years ago we feared you would find your calling and not return.”

“My allegiance is to the Eagle’s Kin and it is to them I gravitate,” Foxe said with a shrug. “And now, for the first time in history, we have an entirely unprecedented situation.”

“Has Monsieur Kenway spoken fo something we should take note? It would be unwise to disobey our Eagle’s Kin when they walk among us.”

“But Edward Kenway is dead,” Élise whispered. Foxe heard her anyway and smiled.

“Edward, yes. His grandson Ratonhnaké:ton is alive and well in the Americas and has taken his place.” Élise gaped.

“But, but that means-“

“You see my Brothers and Sister, this dear young lady is about to ruin the suspense I’ve been building on this aforementioned unprecedented matter. Arno Dorian is also Eagle’s Kin. There are two walking among us, lending their aid to try and fix a world so far broken it became necessary for such odd coexistence. Arno, however, is the younger and as such was unwilling to step forward.” Foxe laid a hand on Arno’s shoulder and the tension visibly drained from his person, the wings folding back toward his shadow’s spine, the golden dust swept from his eyes.

“Mirabeau knew this,” the newcomer continued. “He wrote to me seeking confirmation. Bellec knew this, and received his dues for his betrayal from the one he respected above all others.” A hard glint entered into Foxe’s gaze as he leveled it on Trenet. “And unlike some, Arno is not afraid to do what is best for the Brotherhood over his fear for his own societal standing.”

“I beg your-“

“Monsieur Dorian and Mademoiselle De La Serre share a unique commonality in that any wealth or class status they might have had has already been lost in the Revolution, Trenet. All that they have is given to their respective Orders, and the welfare of those Orders come above their own lives. None more so than for Arno. It is why I move to nominate Arno for the title of Mentor after the funeral. All agreed?”

Quemar and Beylier both murmured a soft, awestruck ‘aye’ and Trenet was forced to offer up an irritated nod of affirmation as a result. Resentment was clear in her gaze toward Arno, but as he was Eagle’s Kin the role she would have been expected to rise to had been given to another that would always be vastly more qualified.

“I believe it falls to Mentor Dorian then, to deliver the last rites,” Beylier pointed out softly, bowing his head. “He knows above all where Bellec’s heart lay at his death, and Mirabeau would have considered it no greater honor than to be laid to rest by an Eagle’s Kin.”

“On that we are agreed,” Arno sighed, tilting his head slightly to crack his neck and then walking noiselessly into the study. Once he had retrieved a worn tome and a key he returned to lead them all outside, and after a short walk through the sewers they emerged in a bare clearing far from their hideout where two pyres had been prepared. Mirabeau had been laid upon his already, a shroud over his face. His ashes were to be delivered to his family’s crypt, but this ceremony was for his true people.

“The shroud is to signify that in death we are freed of the titles and expectations of life,” Cassius Foxe whispered as Élise watched. “By covering the face we grant the honor of anonymity and release from a well-served duty.”

“Why is Bellec uncovered?” She whispered back as Arno took his place exactly between the two pyres at their heads.

“His eyes are closed to signify he has achieved his own final peace, but he is not given a shroud to signify that his duty to the Order fell short. This is not a traitor’s funeral, Élise, bear that in mind. Traitors are laid with their head resting at the feet of those they murdered instead of departing side by side as equals.”

“And the book?”

“Assassins have very few traditions unlike Templars, Élise. Those that we do have to do with our Initiation, Funeral, Mastery, and Mentor Nomination Ceremonies.” He sighed. “Most of them with Funeral, if I am to be honest. While we take great pride in our abilities and skill we live humble lives and earn an ostentatious departure in death for our sacrifices. Mirabeau was an exception to that rule purely because having at least one person in government is necessary to remain in touch with the ruling elite’s behind-doors policies.”

“You said Trenet-“

“The French Brotherhood has, of late, fallen short of our Order’s expectations for their members,” Foxe muttered, grip tightening around the polished mahogany carved top of his walking cane before relaxing. “Trenet resents Arno less because he took her seniority or because of what he is and more because she knows that she will be required to present herself as one of the Bourgeoisie rather than the ruling class as is her birthright. We have had Castles and Keeps, villas, in the past. Most were inherited by an Order member or gifted. Very few were built, and some were conquested. But in this day and age our home in the dark is safest.”

“I don’t think I will ever understand your kind,” Élise sighed, shaking her head. They both fell silent as Arno opened the book.

“We come into this world with nothing and are immediately given a name, a title, a social and economic class. We are presented with the expectations they bring from the time of infancy, and we are shackled by them. To become an Assassin is to break free of those chains and face reality on our own two feet. We meet our destiny on our terms rather than the terms determined by our forebears. To be born into the Assassin Order is an expectation of a different kind, and in a Brotherhood that remains true there is a choice.” Arno produced two Eagle feathers from his belt and laid one across both Mirabeau’s and Bellec’s eyes, closing the book and picking up a torch.

“Mirabeau, born into aristocracy and dedicating his passion and zeal to a Brotherhood that in the eyes of France would have considered us lesser than him. He loved us as equals and we in turn welcomed him the same. Go now in peace, Mon Frère, and be free of the final tether binding you. Rise on the wings of Eagles and take your place among our honored fallen.” As he spoke, Arno touched the torch to the pyre. Flames sprang quickly in a gust of heat, lifting the feather from Mirabeau’s eyes high into the air until it was carried out of sight on the breeze. He turned next to Bellec.

“Bellec. A soldier who felt called to serve in a higher war, dedicating his life to protecting the men and women who fought beside him with the same fervor that carried him through the Seven Years’ War. You were my Mentor, my friend, and ultimately my responsibility. And that has not changed.” He picked up the feather, pricked his finger, and clutched the blood-soaked feather in his fingers before trailing the crimson tip over Bellec’s forehead, leaving a faint streak. Arno pocketed the feather before setting the pure alight, moving to stand at Bellec’s head with his own bowed.

“A man is not responsible for the folly of others lest he claim it as his own, as I now do. You obeyed your own code Mon Frère, and in doing so left your oath to our Order unfulfilled. I take upon my own debts those of my former mentor that they might be satisfied. Find release from your body in death, and when your bind is deemed complete find release also in spirit. The Eagles wait for you, and Mirabeau is among them.”

When the pyres had simmered to the faintest of burning embers Cassius Foxe approached him, leaning slightly on his walking cane. His frame showed clearly how exhausted he was by it all, and Arno felt his heart clench in sympathy for his eldest of friends.

“Foxe,” he acknowledged softly.

“Arno. It’s time, Little Eagle.” A pause. “She cannot be present.”

“Nor would I expect her to be.” Arno swallowed. “Will you swear me in? I cannot in good conscience be sworn in under the words of Trenet.”

“I will, and the right to do so will go uncontested.” With Foxe’s fingers lightly resting on his shoulder he walked back to their headquarters, feet leaden as his spirits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, if you don’t mind a Valhalla spoiler:  
> https://ask-the-almighty-google.tumblr.com/post/634793121194115072/all-i-can-say-is-read-the-codex-entries-in
> 
> Um... WHAT!? Anyway... Yeah, that character aspect and relationship thing is definitely getting brought up at some point because Oh My Word.


	24. Desmond's Journey II: It Comes Back to Haunt You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is currently 10:00AM on December 24th of 2020 as I post this. For those that celebrate Christmas as I do, Merry Christmas. For those that do not, have a Happy Holiday Season. And, everybody, please, stay safe out there!
> 
> In which Desmond continues to be his Eldritch self and poor Shaun takes the brunt of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s recommended that you finish “Fox Tales” before reading this, because Desmond’s chapter (the final chapter) goes a long way to explaining what happened in his childhood that formed who he is as an adult in this fic. Not required, but it’ll fill in some background information.

It was the absence of sound that woke Shaun from his slumber, really. It was too quiet. And by too quiet what he meant was ‘Desmond was no longer in the room.’ He’d been on a hair-trigger since that first evening, and ever since his instincts were hyper-aware of where that man was at all times out of the pure desire to maintain self-preservation.

The first day Desmond had risen before everyone else and gotten twelve laps in around the warehouse, free-running laps that is, then made breakfast, taken a shower, and activated their security system for them. By the time they’d gotten up he’d opened up one of the packing crates and was sitting in the middle of the communal space with a sander, a kit of carving tools, and the freshly-hewn limb off of a nearby tree. Rebecca had been ecstatic when she’d seen his sync levels with Altaïr, and Desmond flew through the memories at such a rate that the Animus overheated.

It had taken her two days to sort through all of the information they’d collected, and she had said late the night before that it would take at least part if not all of today as well. So. Either Desmond was running laps in the warehouse or he was working on...

...Whatever his little wood-carving project was.

“Shaun.”

“Lucy?” He blinked, sitting up in bed, and scrubbed at his eyes before putting his glasses on. “What’s up.”

“Desmond’s outside.”

“What?” Much more awake, Shaun scrambled out of bed in search of his trousers with Lucy politely staring at the ceiling instead of his skinny bum in nothing but pants. “Where?”

“He took a gps watch with him, left a note saying he wouldn’t be gone long. But we were running real low on supplies, I can’t blame him for taking the initiative, I just...” she trailed off and bit her lip. “Out of the four of us, he’s most wanted. I’m a close second. But Abstergo has no idea who you and Rebecca are, making you our safest options. I just don’t understand why he couldn’t give either of you the shop list and get things that way.”

“He probably wanted to stretch his legs,” Shaun suggested tentatively. “The way he dashes about that warehouse. It’s not a big enough place for a person that active.”

“From the way Bill talked, I was expecting a punk that was pretty much helpless,” Lucy sighed, rubbing at her temples. “Not...”

“A Master Assassin with the tactics of a seasoned warrior and the mind of a lifelong scholar?”

“Exactly.” You should have seen him leaving Abstergo, Shaun. He was so nonchalant about escaping, but once we got out into Rome...” She bit her lip, then smiled and rolled her eyes. “When I say he was the absolute worst test subject Abstergo had ever had, I mean it. His sync rate was abysmal, he could barely stay inside a session for an hour before he started having issues... But here? I have no idea how he does it, but he somehow managed to fake low Animus potential at Abstergo. Vidic and I _both_ thought we were wasting our time, honestly. And now Rebecca can’t keep up with the sheer amount of data he’s collected from a single session.”

“I’ve said it before Lucy, and I’ll say it again,” Shaun sighed, stifling a yawn. “That man is not entirely human.” Lucy rolled her eyes.

“Not again with your Eldritch Theories, it’s too early,” she protested. “Just... go find him, please? None of us should go out into Rome proper on our own anyway just as a precaution.”

“Fine, fine,” he conceded, holding his hands up in surrender as he moved toward the exterior door. “But when some sort of tentacle monster appears out of nowhere and eats me in my sleep, you’ll know who to ask yeah?”

“Sure, I’ll talk to the Boogeyman,” she said sweetly, ignoring his scoff. After helping himself to a bowl of oatmeal he donned his shoes and set off toward the mercantile district of Rome, allowing himself to admire the sights as he did so. As Lucy had said, Abstergo really had no idea who he and Rebecca were, and the anonymity afforded a relaxed approach to covert operations because blending in with the crowd as a tourist was the best form of concealment. He stopped at a café for a to-go and sipped it at his leisure, idly wondering what exactly it was Lucy was expecting him to do. If Desmond didn’t want to be found - and since Abstergo had his face on posters everywhere there was no way he _would_ want to be found - then how was Shaun supposed to locate him? It wasn’t as if the city was small by any stretch of the imagination; having once been the capital of an entire empire, the odds of finding _anyone_ were extremely slim.

“You should have sat in the café to scan the crowd,” Desmond said quietly from behind him, making him let out a startled shout and all but jump out of his skin. Shaun turned toward Desmond with his heart beating against his ribcage in an attempt to escape his chest, gulping in huge amounts of air as he watched, almost in slow motion as the adrenaline surge kicked in, the man neatly catch his coffee cup with a single fluid wrist movement and present it to him by the time his feet had landed back on the paving. “It’s less conspicuous.”

“Why do you have to be so- so- you’re like the bloody _Fae!_ ” Shaun snapped. “Make some noise next time!” Desmond just regarded him silently for a moment before shrugging.

“Making just the right amount of noise so that it’s neither too quiet nor too loud is extremely difficult, but once you find the balance it takes actual effort to do either,” he explained.

“What, and I’m not worth the effort?”

“Effort is for level 2 friends, you’re level 1. Stop acting like you think I’m going to eat you and I’ll reconsider.”

“Yeah, because it’s oh so obvious that you won’t,” Shaun muttered under his breath. He paled as Desmond’s lips twitched, fighting a smile, and he swallowed. “You weren’t supposed to hear that. In fact, I find it highly suspicious and a credit to my theory that you’re some sort of immortal Eldritch being that you could hear that at all.”

“I’m not the Fae and I’m not Eldritch.”

“Devil Spawn?”

“I didn’t know you were that well-acquainted with my dad.”

“Oh hah hah.” Shaun scowled as he followed Desmond through the streets. “Bill isn’t that bad.”

“Yeah, well...” Something dark flickered over his gaze. “You’re not his son.” Shaun fell silent, processing that, before raising an eyebrow.

“Not to be a nuisance, but... where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“Lucy wants you back at the warehouse.”

“Tough. There are things we need, that _I personally need_ to be as effective as possible, and I can’t get them stuck inside.” A pause. “So? What other theories do you have about my _supposed_ species?”

“Uh... demigod.” It sent shivers down Shaun’s spine when Desmond flashed him a grin that had just enough teeth in it to be more predatory than friendly. “Anyway. Give me a hint. What are we looking for?”

A high-pitched and repetitive _ting_ sound lilted faintly through the air toward them and the grin turned into a genuine smile. With a sweep of his arm, Desmond indicated the tiny courtyard they’d arrived at through several back alleys and Shaun’s jaw dropped.

“Where did- how did-“

“Something I can help you with, Messere?” The bladesmith asked. Desmond nodded, pulling a series of smithing moulds out of his bag, and Shaun took off his glasses to clean the lenses and make sure he was seeing things correctly. As for the bladesmith, his entire demeanor brightened noticeably when presented with the moulds, handling them gingerly even as he took and examined them. He made a short comment in Italian and Desmond immediately launched into a perfectly fluent conversation with him, quite literally leaving Shaun out of the loop as a casual chat quickly turned into a fast-paced and enthusiastic jabbering. Even more baffling was the moment the bladesmith let Desmond into the shop and at the tools; watching two master craftsmen enjoy the camaraderie of their work was not how Shaun had envisioned this day going.

And Desmond _was_ a master craftsman. He knew exactly what he was doing as he did it, each movement seasoned and confident. Beside him the owner of the shop was working with another set of the moulds Desmond had pulled out, a gleeful expression on his face as he worked.

About two hours in Shaun’s phone rang, making him jump, and with a short cough he answered.

_“Shaun, where are you!?”_

“Um...” he glanced over at the forge and blinked, trying to formulate a reply to Lucy’s inquiry that would be believable. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

_“But you’re safe?”_

“Oh yeah. Plenty of- ah... ways to defend ourselves.” He winced. “Sharp, molten ways...”

_“What!?”_

“See you later, Lucy.” He hung up and sighed, pocketing his glasses and lowering his head into his hands to muffle a frustrated scream.

“Oh, don’t be like that Messere,” the bladesmith chuckled as he kneeled in front of him. Shaun raised his head to lock eyes with the man and frowned at the mischievous laughter dancing in lavender depths.

“I just got yelled at by my boss,” Shaun retorted crossly, “because I was supposed to bring _him_ back to our... office, after going AWOL this morning. _Capisce_ , friend?”

“I’ll be done in a few more hours,” Desmond assured him, not looking up from whatever it was he was doing. “In the meantime you can get the groceries.”

“I’m supposed to keep- know what, never mind.” Shaun shook his head and silently accepted the proffered list with a long-suffering shake of his head. “The farther away I get from you the better I’m going to feel, so sure. I’ll go. But _be. Back._ At the warehouse within three hours, understood?”

“Capisce.”

“...This is one of those moments when I truly, deeply, hate you.”

“Understandable.” Muttering profanities, Shaun set off in search of the necessary shops.

-/\\-

As if there weren’t anything else that could go wrong, Shaun found himself getting mugged outside of the bakery on his way back to the warehouse. Backed against a wall, brown packages clutched in his arms, not a single _polizia_ in sight...

...That was when he heard the soft _snikt_ sound directly above him, and looking up with the two muggers he saw Desmond crouched like some sort of avenging Angel on top of a lamppost. He growled out something in Italian that sounded in no uncertain terms to mean ‘get lost,’ eyes glinting unnaturally from underneath his hoodie, two hidden blades gleaming brand new from where they had slid from the leather bindings on his wrists. Both muggers took one look at him and fled, Shaun wishing he could join them, and with a short hop Desmond dropped neatly onto the pavement beside him.

“You okay?” He asked, taking half the the packages.

“Y- W- Wait. Did you- did you make those at the forge this afternoon?” Shaun asked incredulously. Desmond nodded, releasing one from its holding position so that Shaun could see it properly. Neat engraved Renaissance scripting had been meticulously crafted onto the surface of the wickedly-sharp blade, and this particular one had the tiniest of hollow shafts inside of it for what could only be poison. “How’d you pay..?”

“A few Florins.” He shrugged and smirked. “Figured he could buy some melons with that.”

“...And exactly how old were these Florins in question?”

“Five hundred years, give or take.”

“I should be surprised, but I think I’ve lost the emotional availability to be capable of that today,” Shaun sighed, rubbing at his face. “Can we please get back to the warehouse now?”

“Sure.”

Considering the strange things that had happened that afternoon, the walk back was almost suspiciously uneventful. No one stopped them in the street, no one even seemed to notice that Desmond was even wearing the same hoodie as he was on the wanted posters stuck all over the place. It was like he was invisible or something.

“Bloody- you’re like a- you’re like some sort of hybrid Eldritch-Fae... thing,” Shaun muttered. Desmond swallowed, some unknown emotion shuttering in his eyes before Shaun could get a decent identifying look at it.

“Hybrid, yeah, that’s me,” Desmond said softly. He’d have shoved his hands into his pockets if he weren’t carrying grocery packages. “Just a... blip in the grand tapestry of life. Think everybody but my parents thought I was a mistake.”

“That’s... Depressing.”

“Yeah, well... that’s life sometimes. Messed up as it is. So. How mad do you think Lucy is gonna be when we get back?”

“It depends on what Rebecca managed to find from the Altaïr memory segments you synched with.”

“A comprehensive holographic 3-D map of all of the Isu Temples on the planet still operational,” Desmond grunted, hefting the heavy packages on one arm to open the heavy industrial door, using his back to hold it open as Shaun came in behind him. They began walking up the ramp to the penthouse floor. “He hit the mother lode of artifacts. Of course, he wasn’t the only one. Ezio-“ he trailed off abruptly and swallowed uncomfortably.

“Now, how do you know that, hm?” Shaun asked, frowning. “We haven’t even started Ezio’s memory segments yet.”

“Just... stands to reason, y’now? If Altaïr found something, and we’re looking for things...”

“Flimsy excuse at best, mate.”

“Yeah... I know.”

“So? Am I going to get a definitive answer?”

“Over my cold, dead body.”

“That’ll have to wait,” Rebecca said excitedly from the top of the stairs. “You have _got_ to see what what we dug up in this data.”

“What? H- hey, Rebecca, can you-“

“Hm? Oh, yeah sure.” She bounced down the last few feet of the ramp and took half of Shaun’s packages. “You’ve got Lucy’s yogurt, right? You know, after you ate both of them?”

“Yeah, yeah...”

“We found a map of Precursor Temples. Isn’t that awesome?”

“Yeah... Desmond was just saying.” Rebecca’s smile faded as she turned to frown at Desmond.

“Well, how’d you know that? It wasn’t like the memory sequence made it obvious.”

“Well, what else would the Apple have marked on a map of the globe?” Desmond muttered, wincing. “Artifacts aren’t big enough to mark. Some of them are like, what, no bigger than a necklace? Not worth the cartography, and you can’t guarantee they won’t be removed at some point. But temple locations are fixed, finite. They’ll always be there. They withstood the last eighty-five thousand years at least partially-intact, they can last a few hundred more.”

“You know a lot for someone who just spent the last nine years as far removed from the Brotherhood as possible,” Lucy snapped, irritated, from where she was sitting in front of the living area tv running through the recorded data they’d collected.

“Ask my dad to tell you about a man named Gilbert Foxe sometime,” Desmond snarked in reply. He completely ignored the tv in favor of putting the groceries away in the kitchen nook and then sat down at his allotted desk space to lay out several throwing knives, some arrowheads, a few smoke bombs, and some odd sort of long string that on closer inspection Shaun realized was made of horsehair.

Shaking his head at the man’s antics, he turned his attention to the screen and felt his jaw drop. Projecting from the Apple of Eden was a 3-D hologram map of the Earth, round and complete and composed of golden light like a massive sphere hanging suspended in the air. There were several pinpricks of light dotted all over its surface, and there were even certain land masses that no longer existed.

“It’s unbelievable,” he murmured, adjusting his glasses as they had slipped farther down the bridge of his nose.

“I know, right? Very _Star Wars_.”

“No, I mean- well, yeah I suppose.” He swallowed as his gaze settled on Altaïr. The profile of the shoulders, his gait as he walked... the recording shifted angle to get a decent look at his face under his cowl and right down to the scar on his lip he and Desmond were carbon copies of one another. Feeling a searing heat drill itself into the back of his head, he risked a glance toward the workstations and quickly turned his attention toward the screen again when his gaze met Desmond’s intense stare. He was all but commanding him not to mention anything. “Some of those temple locations- well, when I say some I mean at least two- are in Italy. Is that why Abstergo were interested in Subject 16?”

“Wait, I saw back in Abstergo, you identified matching genetic markers between me and 16,” Desmond called from his spot, standing and walking over to join them properly as he puzzled things over. “Ezio Auditore.”

“You share a common ancestor, he’s basically your long-lost cousin,” Lucy clarified in response to his unasked question. “He’s the one that painted the walls with his blood, committed suicide...”

“He went crazy because of what you did to him,” Desmond said flatly. Lucy flinched.

“Both of us were deep undercover. Me, as the technician to make sure he was safe. Him as the test subject to find out what they were looking for. But his cover got blown and I wasn’t able to help him without revealing my own allegiances, and then both of us would have died.” She hung her head. “I carry that with me, Desmond. Don’t think it doesn’t effect me.”

Desmond was far from calm as he appeared. Inside he was simmering with fury. His descendant. They had tortured and ultimately been responsible for the death of his family. What was he, Flavia’s or Marcello’s great great great and then some grandchild? Which lineage did he descend from? For that matter, which child did Desmond himself descend from? Darim or Sef, Flavia or Marcello? How many other versions of himself was he descended from? Was Ezio Altaïr’s descendent? How far did this bloodline connection actually go, if it went anywhere at all beside him?

Even worse, it looked like they wanted to go through Ezio’s memories now that they’d gotten what they wanted from Altaïr’s. He hated it. This was his life, his collective lives, and they were digging through his most personal of moments purely because they wanted information on the Pieces of Eden. Was nothing sacred anymore? Archeologists were effectively historical graverobbers, but this took it to a new and invasive extreme. He’d had the Order burn remains rather than bury for the express reason that they could be used for study in the future, but how was he to know that having children would be just as dangerous?

And if they had found him, then-

_Don’t. Don’t go there._

“-So I figure we’ll load up Ezio’s memories this evening to get a baseline and framework established and then really get into it tomorrow,” Rebecca finished saying enthusiastically as he tuned back in.

“Sure,” Desmond sighed, his own enthusiasm the express opposite of hers as he stood from the lean against the railing he’d been on and moved toward the kitchen nook. “I’ll just get dinner on, then.”

“What exactly did he say when you asked him to help us?” Rebecca asked Lucy in a whisper once he was out of earshot. Well, regular earshot. Shaun was very much aware he could probably hear every word they were saying about him.

“He wasn’t keen on it but it was kind of the ‘enemy of my enemy’ type thing,” Lucy murmured, brow furrowed. “He said he had Vidic Marked and that working together was the best way to achieve his goal, so he’d cooperate to help us in return.”

“But he wasn’t happy about it.”

“No. He’s... driven. But not because he actually wants to be here. I mean, there’s a reason he left in the first place, and considering everything _else_ Bill said about him has been wrong, I think it’s a lot less because he couldn’t take the stress and a lot more because there was an ideological dispute or something... he seems a lot more traditional than basically- well, anyone else in the Order.”

“You’d think he’d be over the moon to see how the greats did things then,” Rebecca snorted. She leant back down in her bean bag and ignored Shaun’s gagging noise of disgust as she placed her socked feet over his legs like a footrest. “We’ll see how things go after the second session.”

-/\\-

Well. If revisiting Altaïr’s memories had been a painful blast of nostalgia, Ezio’s were even worse. This was the day everything changed. This was when it happened. And reliving his Awakening was different, because unlike Altaïr he had loaded into the session a full day prior to the moment instead of halfway through the process.

Desmond had never had an Awakening in his current form. He had simply been born that way. Reliving the feeling of his body changing, his very dna altering to become half Isu when it had once been fully human, having the memories of past lives blast into his head... It was an experience he had somewhat forgotten the exact details of an it was indescribable.

Ezio the boy was very different in how he carried himself compared to Ezio the man, a transition that had occurred in a manner of seconds rather than years. Saving his family, taking them somewhere safe.

His conversation with Leonardo and Federico about what he was. The Settling that was such an intensely private affair of getting his mental house in order, coming to terms with his past lives.

All of it was so intensely personal that Desmond roughly desynched with the Animus, rolled off the chair, and promptly threw up on the floor. He was revolted by himself and his allowing them to record such a thing, so much so that it made him sick to his stomach. Shaun and Rebecca half dragged, half carried him to his room while Lucy ran over the diagnostics and left him on his bed to join her, letting him rest.

He curled in on himself and whispered apologies to his past lives in all of their native languages and dated time period vocabularies, sighing softly as Nike flew in through the open window and landed on the bed to lightly preen his hair.

“I don’t get it,” Lucy muttered, eyeing the diagnostic data over with a confused frown. “His synch rate was record-breaking off the charts. It shouldn’t have done that.”

“Ezio was Eagle’s Kin,” Rebecca reminded her, looking thoughtful. “Who knows what that Awakening must have felt like for Desmond trying to relive it.”

“I thought the Eagle’s Kin was just some sort of Assassin urban legend,” Shaun said, raising an eyebrow. “I know I wasn’t born into the Brotherhood like you two were, but is it actually real? I mean. I just saw it happen, but you really mean to say that...”

“Oh, yeah,” Lucy replied quickly, eyes lighting up as a person’s usually does when presented with a favorite hobby subject of research. “We’ve got documented proof over the centuries. Victorian London and then Imperial-Occupied India, Revolutionary France, American Revolutionary War, Golden Age of Piracy, Renaissance Italy obviously, Third Crusade Levantine... We have no idea how many came before Altaïr, but it’s been noted several times by people that spoke with these Eagle’s Kin that he wasn’t the first.”

“Reincarnation. Extremely specific reincarnation.” Shaun puffed out a breath and ran his fingers through his hair, pacing. “Because of Precursor- Ah, Isu- technology that made them that way. Like Sages, which apparently are real as well, but actually helpful. I mean, the concept alone. Could you imagine one of those, here, now?”

“Abstergo wouldn’t know what hit ‘em,” Rebecca agreed, grinning. “I mean, these guys can be pretty scary when they want to be. We saw that well enough with Altaïr and the little bit we’ve gotten through with Ezio. All that knowledge, all that skill, packed into a single person who’s half human half Isu, making them basically a hybrid superhuman? God, what I wouldn’t give to meet one...”

“I’m going to go check in on Desmond, make sure he isn’t having a seizure or something,” Shaun said quickly, exiting the room as soon as possible without making it too conspicuous. The word ‘hybrid’ had struck a cord in him.

Slowing at the door to their shared room, he took in Desmond and Nike from the doorway and swallowed.

“Those are your memories, aren’t they?” He asked softly. Desmond sighed, then nodded at sat up, rubbing at his temples and scrubbing a hand down his face. Quietly, Shaun sat on his own bed to face across from him. Nike hopped onto the nightstand and chirped at him. “Hello.”

“Nike, meet Shaun. Shaun, meet Nike,” Desmond muttered tiredly. His eyes seemed to show their true age and it made Shaun shiver. “What do you want?”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Why not just show us where these places are, rather than go through this elaborate charade to remain hidden?”

“My dad never found out. Never bothered to give me the time of day, really, so I guess you can’t fault him for not noticing what I was. I’ve been this way all my life. Unlike the others, I’ve been Eagle’s Kin since birth. I left the Assassins because they no longer stood true to the ideals I set down when Aya and I founded our Order.” Shaun’s eyes widened at that but he said nothing, and Desmond cast him a grateful look for his silence. “I never said anything because if Abstergo found out, they’d want to dissect me and who knows what else.”

“And _our_ team, specifically?”

“Lucy isn’t...” Desmond trailed off and bit his lip. “I can’t pin her down. But the reason Subject 16 never made it out of Abstergo is because she sold him out to the Templars.” He quickly placed his hand over Shaun’s mouth to keep him from shouting. “ _Listen_. You saw how Eagle Vision works in the Animus, yeah?”

“Mmhm.”

“Red for danger, blue for ally or help. Lucy is actually _purple_. I can’t pin it down. She’s either a triple agent or a quadruple agent, but either way the Templars found her out and had her work for them. Since she isn’t dead, she agreed to cooperate. What I can’t figure out is if she’s pretending to help us and is really helping them, or if she’s double-crossing them now that they can’t touch her and she’s really working for us.”

“Well, how do we figure that out?” Shaun hissed, removing Desmond’s hand from his mouth and looking frantically toward the door.

“We be patient. Sooner or later, Vidic is going to catch up with us. When he does, I’m going to take him out for what he did to our Brother. How Lucy responds to that determines our next step.”

“What about Rebecca? Can we at least tell her?” Desmond blinked, contemplating.

“How good of a secret keeper is she?”

“...So we don’t tell her until either it doesn’t matter or we absolutely have to before that then.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Never recruit her to plan a surprise birthday party.”

“...I will keep that in mind.”


	25. Altaïr’s Journey III: Jury of Acre

“Why all the guards?” Altaïr asked as he followed Maria through the city.

“The King is here inspecting the garrison,” Maria retorted, something like awe in her voice. He snorted at that and she rolled her eyes. “I felt that way too. He was blown out of proportion, propaganda... but having seen him in person, Altaïr... he carries himself with a nobility and assurance that speaks volumes. I find fault with many of his policies, but as a person I respect his steadfastness to his personal convictions.”

“He sounds like a very complex man,” Altaïr murmured absently, ducking low as they passed one of his Brothers in the street to obscure his face. “I’ll withhold my judgements unless I get the chance to meet him myself. Saladin himself once laid siege to Masyaf.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. My father died during that siege. I was... nine, at the time.” Maria blinked and drew in a breath.

“I’m sorry.” She nodded toward the Keep and the vast amount of soldiers. “Three targets. William of Montferrat and Sibrand are both inside while King Richard remains in Acre. However, Garnier de Naplouse operates a hospital on the other side of the city.” Her nose wrinkled. “A house of horrors rather than healing, if you ask me. Of my allies committing treason I am helping you kill, he is the one that I would most likely try and end myself if you weren’t doing it for me.

“I’m glad this quest to restore the honor of my Order is so convenient for you,” came the dry reply. She laughed, a soft sort of breathy sound, and he smiled. “I gather we are aiming for Naplouse first, in the hopes that his death will prompt Richard to leave and open up the other two targets?”

“You gather correctly. Getting into the hospital is the easy part; there are at least three broken windows in the place. The difficult part is going to be getting close enough to him to get your blade in. The place is crawling with armed guards- no doubt on loan courtesy of Montferrat unless he has some sort of hired force I’m not aware of- and there are very few places to hide. The ceiling is low, too low for beams high enough up to keep you concealed.”

“What about disguising myself as one of the rabble?”

“I wouldn’t risk it if I were you,” Maria warned. “Naplouse likes drugging his victims- sorry, I meant _patients-_ “

“No you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.” She smirked and he matched it. They cruised to a halt outside the main doors to the compound and sat on a bench. “He drugs them with strange herbs and solutions. It affects their minds.”

“Does he ever leave the hospital?” Altaïr asked, leaning closer toward her and lowering his voice.

“No. He has no need to,” Maria whispered back. “I- if you moved swiftly I suppose-“

“I have to interrogate him,” came the resigned sigh. “That takes longer, and I need a secluded spot...” He frowned and blinked slowly, intense focus centering on the hospital. Maria swallowed as she glanced under his hood and found that his sharp golden eyes appeared molten, glowing softly in the shadow of the cowl.

“You are a strange man, Ibn-La’Ahad,” she murmured. “I’m not quite sure what to make of you.”

“Walls turn to smoke when I use my Sight,” he explained absently. “With it I can see what lies beyond. Glittering dust highlights the path of my target and illuminates weaknesses in architecture. I can predict where my enemies will turn, where they will rest. My senses are much more refined and heightened over my Brothers and Sisters who also possess the Sight, and as such I could even see weakness in my targets’ armor and where their weapons are stored if I wish. It takes great concentration and effort to do so, and as such I usually refrain, but right now...”

The soft glow in his eyes brightened and Maria sucked in a breath. His own breathing was slow, even, and deep; almost in a meditative trance, he was so still he could have passed for a stone statue if not for the extremely rhythmic expansion and deflation of his chest. After a few moments he blinked, a sort of... _humanity_ returning to his gaze, and the loosening of his body had a coil of tension easing itself out of her own.

“He sleeps separately from his guard, at the top of a tower overlooking the courtyard,” Altaïr explained, pointing out objects that she had no way of seeing even as she followed the movement of his fingers. “I can climb the tower if I improvise my gear and enter through the window. It’d be a narrow fit, but...” he rolled his shoulders and shrugged. “My profile is much narrower than it was in my prior life. A runner’s build, rather than a gladiator’s. I’ll fit.”

“I don’t think you properly realize how strange it is to hear someone say that,” Maria chuckled. He smirked.

“No? Try to imagine telling your wife you were a woman once.”

The look on her face was priceless.

-/\\-

Altaïr frowned at the tower and Naplouse’s window, fingers clenching at the imagined feel of nicks and grooves of the stonework underneath them. There was a significant gap between the ledge and the closest available handhold, even if he leapt up to grab it, and jumping to it was all but impossible as the nearest object to push off of was too far away. To achieve his goal, he would need to get creative.

Designs for Hidden Blades, for improving and diversifying them, had been percolating in his head since the Ides of March and refining them was a matter of artistic pride. In the few weeks since reconnecting with his past selves he’d been amazed by the technical acumen his latest mind possessed, calculations seeming to come with precise accuracy as if through his subconscious for all the effort it took to make them. So, by his calculations, if he extended the reach of his arm by about...

Even the blacksmith Altaïr had tied on a stool in the corner to use his forge seemed intrigued by the designs and the general craftsmanship of the object in question. It didn’t have to be a blade, though the idea of incorporating that when he had more time held promise. Just figuring out how to not lose another finger in making the thing had proven difficult enough, and he was unfamiliar with the more modern aspects of this man’s forge that had occurred over the last... one thousand years, give or take.

Two full days after arriving in Acre, Altaïr crept through the alleys to the base of the hospital and nimbly scaled the walls to approach the dormitory tower. He took a moment to size up his objective, shook out his shoulders and fingers, and then took off at a full run.

All but flying up the side with forward momentum, his toes and fingertips found every bump, nook, cranny, and rough edge they could achieve purchase on as he went. The long leap approached at lightning speed, he began a climbing leap...

...And the hookblade extended neatly from his right gauntlet with the new spring trigger system at the wrist, the multiple sections lengthening from their hidden position to lock in place. The tip of the hook caught the ledge of the window with the faintest of scraping noises, and for a few critical milliseconds he hung suspended on that tiny pressure point as in the same movement his toes pushed upward to arch him just a few inches higher and his hands curled around the edge of the sill to securely cling to it.

Hauling himself up by the tips of his fingers, Altaïr hissed with the effort of it and let out a long breath to slow his racing pulse as he utilized the thin and sharp standard hidden blade on his left gauntlet by sliding it between the window pane frames and lifting the catch. It fell back with the softest of clicking noises and he pushed the window open with minute movements. A lazy pace when careful to not disturb a man’s slumber could mean the difference between an alarm being raised or a clean execution.

Stepping lightly onto a table cluttered every which way with papers, scientific equipment, ink wells, snuffed candles, and quills, he lowered himself onto the stool and then tested the floor for creaks with a single bit of pressure applied through the top of one foot. Satisfied with what he found, he slunk toward Naplouse snoring on his cot and placed a firm hand over his mouth.

Naplouse jerked harshly under the weight of Altaïr’s arm, eyes wild with fright, but he found himself unable to fight against the superior strength of the younger man.

“Lie still and speak only when spoken to,” Altaïr growled. The light _snik_ of his hidden blade engaged as it slid from its holding and pressed insistently against his victim’s neck. “What do you do with your poultices and tonics? These herbs of control. For what benefit are they?”

“The- they are, are used to create a labor force,” Naplouse rasped, shaking. “We believe that they exhibit much the same principle as the Artifact.”

“In this you are not wrong. What then? A secondary form or a test?”

“Both. B- both.” He drew a shuddering whimper. “If we couldn’t have the Artifact, we intended to make do with the herbs. But to see the extent to which a man could be persuaded to do things A- against his- his nature. That... that is truly a wondrous thing to experiment with...”

“We were once no more than cattle from which our ancestors made us free,” Altaïr sighed. The anger dissipated into a long-established and tired sadness that slumped his shoulders, but his blade did not waver. “What did Al Mualim know of this?”

“Al Mualim?” Naplouse swallowed and fell silent, but Altaïr could see it was contemplative as he thought out his answer and refrained from prodding him into speaking sooner. “It was his idea, Assassin.”

“How involved was he?”

“...Your people were named as a derivative of ‘users of hashish,’ yes?” A slow, smug smile spread across Naplouse’s face. “He gave us the hash.”

“Find the peace denied your victims in death,” Altaïr spat, disgusted. The hidden blade drove home and he quickly stepped away from the bed as the sheets stained dark crimson, the kill clean in severing the carotid. He dipped an Eagle feather in the pool and pocketed it in the pouch with the other feathers, standing and retreating out the window from which he had come.

Naplouse’s death, from such a secure and supposedly-impenetrable position, had King Richard being escorted under heavy guard out of the city in a matter of hours. William of Montferrat and Sibrand moved out into the city, making it easier to target them, but they were never without armed patrol more than two steps behind them.

Altaïr faced another problem. The Assassins who operated in the city were aware of the skill required to make such a kill, and they also knew none of them had been chosen to carry it out. The first steps taken after such a high profile but unfortunately necessary kill were for Maria to secure him the light armor of an aide and assign him to her on temporary basis, allowing him to be billeted in her quarters during their mutual stay there. Sleeping inside the Keep was as safe as it was dangerous, because while he had grown a beard to obscure his facial features on the street he couldn’t seek refuge in the Bureau from a Rafiq whose allegiance remained firmly with Al Mualim. Malik had cautioned him against approach as the man was stubborn and belonged to the first generation of students taught at Masyaf under Al Mualim’s tutelage. Altaïr had been executed as a traitor in his eyes and would not take kindly to his being alive seeking aid, nor would he heed the words of Malik or Yassir as they were far younger than he was.

He slept on a cot next to the window, as far from Maria’s bed as possible to make it clear he had no ill intent toward her, and the obscuring helmet of the Crusader armor made him just as anonymous as his Assassin robes did as he followed Maria about the city on her administrative rounds. With another of the Order killed in the city she was occupying, Robert De Sablé was keeping her very busy as a general dogsbody for Montferrat and Sibrand.

Of the two remaining targets, both presented equal but differing challenges. Montferrat spent most of his time managing the Keep from inside, training new men, and as such he was well-defended in an area crawling with armed soldiers. Sibrand had become increasingly paranoid as the days drew out, fear of never being truly safe surfacing tenfold with Naplouse’s unexpected death and reports coming in of his three dead Brothers from Damascus. He took to patrolling exclusively in the harbors and slept on a ship that was anchored far off-shore. It took considerable effort to walk down a fully exposed pier to reach it. And the ship was, again, covered in guards.

Altaïr focused his efforts on Sibrand. If he were to kill Montferrat first, the Keep would lock itself down and no one would be able to leave. Dressed as Crusaders, he and Maria would be trapped inside and unable to escape to Jerusalem to complete the last of the target list. The plan was for Maria to leave before killing Montferrat for just this reason and in addition to give her an alibi for the time of his death. If she arrived in Jerusalem to report in to De Sablé a day after the kill, she would have obviously been on the road before the incident had occurred.

-/\\-

He took a deep breath and carved clearly through the dark water, diving deep. Unlike the muddy depths of the Nile, the port of Acre was much clearer in comparison. Still murky and not a match to the Aegean, but clear enough to see where he was going as an experienced swimmer, and Altaïr thanked again his good fortune in Bayek and Kassandra’s skill upon the water whether by trireme or by rowboat. Most people born into the Brotherhood were taught to climb as an important skill rather than stressing the importance of swimming, and considering how landlocked Masyaf was aside from dangerous rapids or shallow rivers that wasn’t surprising. The fact remained, however: No one ever expected an Assassin to strike from below when the opportunity to strike from above also presented itself.

Wearing only a light tunic and breeches, devoid of boots or heavy fabric, he cleaved his way with seasoned strokes low to the bed of the harbor. Sibrand’s ship slowly appeared nearer and larger before him, and breaking the surface tension with a light gasp and a soft splash that had him praying they thought it was a fish he tread water to hide underneath the stern of the ship for a few moments. A few minutes later Darius let out a screech and dove from the sky, smashing his talons into Sibrand’s head and knocking him over the side of the ship into the water.

As Sibrand resurfaced, Altaïr grabbed him and dunked him under again, dragging him deep under the water to minimize the amount of thrashing that would register above. As his prey weakened, he pulled him through the water toward a far less guarded part of the port and threw him onto the edge of the dock.

”Assassin!” Sibrand coughed, hacking up water. The shout came out as a weak wheeze. “First Garnier, and now me.”

“Montferrat is next,” Altaïr growled, stalking forward and sliding his blade into Sibrand’s lower right arm. “Speak quickly and truthfully to what I ask, and you will receive the antidote to the poison I have administered. Call out, and Inwill kill you where you stand. Know that you are a dead man walking.”

“Poison!?” Sibrand stuttered, eyes widening in fear. “But, how?”

“A device of my own making, in which my blade is envenomed.” Altaïr studied the tiny hollowing out of his hidden blade with a small amount of pride in the craftsmanship more than anything else. It had been Maria’s idea and her design, though he himself had implemented it. Naplouse had worked with more than hashish in his studies. “This is not for you to understand but merely to comprehend. Now, do we have an accord?”

“Ask... Assassin,” the man sighed, already looking pale as he sat heavily on a barrel. Altaïr perched on a crate nearby, his pose the intimidating perfect balancing act of ‘owling’ that would be slightly comical if not for the opportunity it afforded to spring into immediate action.

“When you worked peacefully with one another, were Al Mualim and Robert De Sablé equal and willing partners?”

“You wish to know if your Master was coerced into working with us. It was he who approached our Order with news on the location of an Artifact,” Sibrand panted, pulling at his collar. “He spoke of lofty ambitions toward ridding the land of the influence of Saladin and King Richard. The power vacuum that would have resulted would have given either of our Orders a strong foothold in the region.”

“Did you not argue over succession?”

“It was not important at the time.” Sibrand waved a hand dismissively. “It was mutually understood by both factions that this would only ever end in a double-cross.”

“And you now close the port to King Richard’s arriving fleet in the hopes of preventing him from strengthening his resolve.”

“Yes.”

“I have no more to learn from you,” Altaïr said, standing. He swiped one of Darius’ feathers over the talon gash of Sibrand’s forehead, pocketed it, and began walking down the dock toward the walls of the city.

“W-wait!” Sibrand called, coughing. Blood trickled from his mouth. “You promised me the antidote if I spoke true!” Altaïr paused to glance over his shoulder. The man had to die. He had been marked for it since his name had appeared on the list. Exploiting a weakness was a cold but logical tactic in a war without morality and he knew it. They both knew it. He had said so himself, that the only expectation of the outcome was a double-cross. There was nothing left to discuss.

“I did not like what you had to say.”

-/\\-

“Do you enjoy what you do?” Maria asked softly. Altaïr blinked in surprise and rolled over on his cot. In the pitch dark of the room he could easily see that she had her back to him, facing the wall where she lay on her bed, but the careful pattern of her breathing showed she was keeping tight control over her voice and tensed muscles.

“Once. But that was a boy pretending to know what it meant to be a man.” He settled back down and stared at the ceiling, hands folded over his chest. “Now? There are some targets who I take more satisfaction in killing, but mainly I find it sad. That such potential that exists in all life should be squandered and used to harm others, to the point that it is necessary for my people to intervene... there is a waste of purpose and existence that alters the very way in which others go about their days in a negative way. And so it is sad.”

“You speak of life as a sacred thing, yet you maintain the peace by killing,” she murmured. Neither confused nor accusing, it was a simple statement designed to elicit a truthful response whatever that might be.

“We work in the dark to serve the light. We are a multitude of contradictions.” He let out a bitter chuckle. “None more so than I, who uphold the tenets of free will yet am consigned without choice to be reborn over and over again in its service.”

“That bothers you.”

“Wouldn’t it bother you?” Maria was silent for a few moments, lost in thought.

“I suppose.” Fabric ruffled as she shrugged under her blanket. “It’s different for the Templars. We believe that self-determination sets us apart from the masses, but that not all should be given it. There are those not wise enough to govern themselves and thus must be guided in turn.”

“But not controlled through force.”

“No. At least, that wasn’t what I was told.” Altaïr sighed and stood, walked over to the side of her bed, and waited for her to turn toward him.

“Come with me,” he asked, holding out his hand. Maria hesitated for a few moments before accepting, and after they had both dressed themselves in peasant garb they crept from their billeted room into the dark of night. They climbed a ladder and stepped out onto a rooftop, where he broke into a run and she was forced to follow. There was a thrill in hanging suspended above the streets as they leapt from one building to another, the wind chill through their hair and stinging their cheeks. She gave up trying to anticipate where her next footfall would take her and embraced her warrior’s instincts and reflexes to trust them what to do, following behind him as he led them ever higher through the outskirts of the Keep toward the wall itself.

Maria skidded to a halt when he launched himself at the wall of the farthest tower, nimbly clinging to the stones with invisible grips. Casting about for a few moments, she spied the open door and the staircase that led to the top. Again she ran, determined to meet him rather than arrive late, and came to the top panting for breath just as Altaïr hauled himself over the edge. He flashed her a grin, eyeshine glittering like the stare of an Eagle, as he beckoned her over to the wall and leant against it.

“It’s so peaceful up here,” Maria whispered, bracing her arms on the wall beside him and letting out a breath of awe when she saw most of Acre spread below them. “There’s a feeling of satisfied, earned rest at having gotten here in the first place, and the sounds of the city are muted. Just us... and the birds...”

“It’s simple. The world is at your feet, your head in the clouds,” Altaïr murmured. “You feel you can see the world as the angels do.” He pointed at a street far below them, where two men were talking. As he continued speaking, one shoved the other against the wall at knifepoint. “All falls away. There is only right and wrong, subjective to your own interpretation.”

“He’s being robbed.” Maria pointed out the obvious, brow furrowing.

“Wait a moment.”

As they watched, the man wielding the knife collapsed against the other’s chest, the knife dropping to the paving stones as he clutched the fabric of his supposed victim’s tunic and lowered his forehead to rest against the other man’s chin. Another object fell to the ground, tiny glittering circles spilling over the street. There were not many. Without empathy, the supposed victim pushed the now-sobbing man roughly off of him and gathered up the coins as the man with the knife sank to his knees and clutched at the hem of the other’s robe.

“Nothing is ever as we initially see it,” Altaïr whispered. “We don’t know what happened, why he pulled the knife. All we know is that he was desperate, and that the money given was greatly needed. We don’t know why he needed the money, why the other man felt he had the right to request it. Whether a loan, or blackmail, it makes no difference to us. We see things as they are, but we are all of us predisposed to judgmental bias. It is human nature. Realizing that is...” He sighed heavily and blew out a breath of crisp night air, glancing up at the stars. “Our Creed does not call us to action, Maria. It commands us only to be wise. That is the truth that has been buried in Al Mualim’s flawed teachings.”

“And yet our two Orders began long before Al Mualim and Robert De Sablé with fundamentally diverging values,” Maria pointed out. “We will always be at odds, Altaïr.”

“Will we?” His gaze remained fixed on the money transfer far below. “You left England to be free. Now you fight so that your Grand Master can control you.”

“I don’t-”

“Even if Robert were to live and remain, to succeed, to establish his vision. Would he have let you retain your autonomy, or would he impose the same restrictions upon you that are endowed upon all women?”

“...How did you know I left England because I found it too restricting?” She asked softly. He shrugged.

“Why else would a woman disguise herself as a man and travel into a strange, war-torn land when it is clear she does not do so for religious fervor?”

“...Point taken.” Maria cast her eyes to the sky and blew her bangs out of them only to find that he had turned to watch her intently. Strangely, that burning gaze wasn’t half as unnerving when focused upon her as it was when directed at others. “My father married me off, but I was a tomboy from the very start. My... husband, he expected two sons and a daughter. In that order, within the first five years of our marriage. I never wanted to be the Lady of the Manor, all trussed up in fine linens as if I were made of cracked glass. To be nothing more than... than my appearance. How I looked, acted, sounded. I wanted... I wanted to matter. To _do_ something that mattered. After four years of marriage, I procured an annulment from my husband- and I do mean an _annulment_ \- and left.”

“And so you chose the Templars?”

“What are you really asking me?” She questioned observantly. Altaïr’s gaze glittered with something undefinable and he turned back to watching over the city.

-/\\-

The morning of Montferrat’s death dawned with understated simplicity. Altaïr and Maria shared some honey-sweetened oatmeal and prepared for the day while it was still dark, dressing on either side of the space with a sheet erected between them for propriety - Altaïr’s idea, not Maria’s, which had been given with much undue embarrassment that she laughed at. He had filled his throwing knife sheathes and slid his predator bow over his shoulders, full quiver compressed against his back under his dagger. Sword in sheathe, he strapped his hidden blades on and tightened the fastenings.

“Are you ready?” Maria called softly.

“Yes.” She drew back the sheet and flashed a tense smile, hair in several braids that fell unbound around her shoulders as she was clad fully in her armor.

“Could you... could you help me with this?” She asked. Altaïr nodded, stepping forward as she turned her back to allow him access. She continued speaking as he wound the braids into a tight bun and tied them off with cords. “If all goes well, this ordeal will soon be over.”

“You can return to your duties under a new but just Grand Master who has the interests of his people set above his own,” came the absent reply. She tried not to fidget in her seat as he worked with a steady and methodical pace.

“And you?”

“I fear that I will become the new Mentor. I’m up to the task, as is obvious by my having founded our Order to begin with, but...” he trailed off for a few moments and let the unspoken hesitation speak for itself. “Is that my purpose? The reason for my continued existence? I grow weary to think so.”

“It is hard to fathom that a man could live over and over again, each time starting anew, without some sort of purpose being behind it,” Maria admitted as he finished the final touches. She stood and turned about to smile kindly at him and slowly raised his cowl over his head until he was watching her with shaded eyes. She stepped back. “Thank you.”

“I wish you safe travels so that we will reconvene in Jerusalem.”

“And I you.”

They startled at a frantic rapping at the door, Altaïr moving quickly underneath the only piece of furniture that would conceal him and watching as Maria donned her helmet and answered from his spot beneath the table. A knife was primed in his twitching fingers, twirling ever so slightly as the very frazzled man spoke.

“I’m sorry, Lord Thorpe, but- but there- Oh, you must come see.”

“See what?” Maria asked gruffly, deepening her voice as much as possible.

“William of Montferrat, he- he has been killed.”

“Killed!? How, when!?”

“In full view of the new recruits, just a few moments ago,” replied the messenger as Altaïr tensed in his hiding spot. “We have already secured the Keep. The Assassin must still be inside the walls.” To Maria’s credit, the only sign that such a decision sat ill with her was the slightest of tremors in her voice.

“...I see. I shall go and inspect the body, and... Well. Why did you send for me?”

“Sir Bouchart is now in temporary command of the garrison until arrangements can be made. He said to send for you that you might assess the situation.

“Thank you. That will be all.”

The door closed and Maria exhaled heavily, pulling her helmet off and dropping it onto the table as Altaïr crept from underneath it to stand beside her.

“Bouchart?” He asked.

“A high official in the order, one of De Sablé’s commanders.” She sniffed dismissively and then pinned him in place with a worried glare. “A more egotistical chauvinist you never did meet. What happened?”

“Al Mualim must have received news of the targets in Damas and wished to make certain none else could speak before their demise,” he murmured thoughtfully. “This isn’t good. We need to make for Jerusalem as swiftly as possible.”

“But how? They’ve closed the gate and have doubled the patrolling guard!”

“The same way all Assassins enter and exit. We fly.”

“...What??”

Under the cover of darkness, Altaïr had a distinct advantage. Maria actually clung lightly to his arm to make dually certain that they weren’t separated and that she didn’t trip over anything as they moved through shadows of the setting moon, the pre-dawn air misting with the humidity of the harbor. They climbed to the battlements and ran in a half-crouch as silently as possible toward one of the bordering towers, and with a soft growl of frustration Altaïr gave chase to the tails of a snow white robe disappearing over the wall.

“Jump!” He hissed, and with a clearly terrified shout Maria followed his example. They landed squarely in the hay cart directly below them, where she lay winded trying to calm her hammering heart as Altaïr leapt neatly from the soft cushion and prowled close by trying to find his target.

Bells rang out in the city as Abbas Sofian flashed a predatory smile at him and disappeared into Acre.


	26. Ezio’s Journey III: Taking Flight

**_“YOU MARRIED ROSA TO COMMIT TAX FRAUD!?”_** Giovanni shouted.

When asked to recall at a later time what had gone down, the Auditore siblings seemed to concur that they had never seen that vein throbbing in their father’s neck before that moment. Leonardo would even go so far as to say that the shade of red he had turned was akin to a blood moon and that the sheer fury he exuded created an aura of color so visibly he fancied he knew what Ezio and Claudia saw when they used their Sight.

“...Not _only_ ,” Federico hedged, making Rosa snicker from her spot beside him as Giovanni dropped his head into the palm of his hand and let out a much-aggrieved groan of disappointment. “Besides, our Bureau exists through free tenant-ship courtesy of Leonardo, who is illegally allowing us to work here without his benefactor being the wiser.”

“Thanks for that Fratello,” Leonardo said with false cheer as Giovanni glared at the pair of them in turn.

“My pleasure. Face it, father. Assassins commit tax fraud on a regular basis. It’s practically a mechanic of our operations.”

“Yes, the lesser-known fourth tenet of our Creed,” Ezio snorted on a low and sarcastic drawl. “Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent, hide in plain sight, never compromise the Brotherhood, and ‘at all costs whenever applicable commit tax fraud.’ I think I read that somewhere.”

“Wrote it more like,” Claudia suggested with a grin. He wagged a finger at her and pressed it to his lips in a shushing motion, eyes glittering with mischief.

“Where did I go wrong?” Giovanni sighed, sitting tiredly on a stool with an utterly defeated posture. “I really thought I was doing well when you were younger. I thought I taught the finer points of economy with flourish...”

“You let Uncle Mario assist with our training when we got to Monteriggioni.”

“That’s it...” There was a thundering sound on the roof, crashing downstairs, and the pounding of many feet on the staircase and he looked up in alarm as his children collectively winced. “Who is that?”

“Um... the Novices, wanting to pay their respects,” Ezio murmured, rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly. “They may be a bit... excited.”

“Understatement!” Federico coughed as two of their more rambunctious recruits swung off the roof and through the open window. The rest followed quickly after, coming up from the workshop below the proper way. Ages ranged from mid teens to late thirties, all of them eager to see their Order’s Mentor, and Giovanni’s eyes widened in alarm as the room abruptly crammed with twenty other people. Habitually, he reached for his walking cane and struggled back to a stand, his bad leg refusing to cooperate with any quick movement.

“Hey hey hey, give him some room!” Sofia ordered. The Novices all but parted for her like the Red Sea for Moses and Ezio couldn’t hide the proud smile he wore. “Now answer me this, has there _ever_ been occasion where an Assassin has felt comfortable being beset upon by a crowd of unfamiliar strangers?”

A round of sullen, collective ‘no’s circulated those assembled and she nodded approvingly.

“I didn’t think so. We have _some_ manners here. Show him.”

“And you still haven’t told him?” Sofia asked. Ezio sighed, leaning back on the roof and staring at the sky.

“Which thing?” He countered evasively. She elbowed him hard in the ribs, making him cough, before lying beside him and resting her head against his chest.

“That you’re Eagle’s Kin. That you’re planning to ask for my hand in marriage. That you’ve been training Claudia.” She blew out a breath and it tickled his loose bangs against his forehead. “Honestly, Ezio. Is there _anything you have_ told him?”

“Keeping secrets is an Auditore family past time,” Ezio growled softly in annoyance. “The only reason my siblings and I know anything of importance is because we collaborate to piece together the tidbits and table scraps we _do_ receive.”

“That’s not much of a way to live one’s life,” Sofia murmured softly. “Is that why Federico never told your father his plans with Rosa?”

“Federico was never much one to ask for permission. With Rosa’s parents dead, it was largely a decision between the pair of them. Besides. Forging matches between children is the past time of nobles.”

“We’re _both_ of nobility,” she reminded him. “So like it or not it wouldn’t be fitting to ignore the custom of first seeking parental approval.”

“Things were much easier three hundred years ago,” he muttered. “Not nearly as hard marrying Maria.”

“Do you... miss her?” Sofia asked tentatively, for the first time truly self-conscious in a way that Ezio knew well from Maria’s own doubts.

“I miss the idea of her,” he said carefully. “And in so yes, I do. When I was Altaïr she was, in every sense, my other half. I felt I couldn’t breathe without her near. But I felt the same for Aya, and for Natakes.” He stroked her hair. “Love doesn’t fade, Sofia. But it changes with new life. I feel the same for you as I did for them, and the idea of them, that longing ache for someone to understand me as they did, is soothed by you. You complete me as they did, because in this life it is your soul that echoes my own.”

“Ever the romantic,” she sighed softly. “Why did I have to fall for an immortal, hmm? Life would have been far easier if I had not.”

“And much more boring.”

“True. Just... promise me? That you want me for me and not the memory of someone else?”

“I promise.” Ezio’s eyes glittered with sadness and they both sat up. “And that is the reason I can’t tell my father what I am. When he looks at me, would he see me, or Altaïr?”

“Oh,” Sofia breathed. “I hadn’t considered that until now. But he _is_ quite the ehm... Altaïr enthusiast as it were.”

“Worse, what if he’ll be disappointed that I’m not?”

-/\\-

“I don’t like this idea,” Giovanni said with a frown, eyeing the flying contraption that Leonardo had made and wincing. “If humans were meant to fly, we would have grown wings.”

Ezio coughed uncomfortably at that comment and handed Leonardo a piece of canvas.

“Well, Federico has taken the Novices to light the braziers on the rooftops. I know what I am doing, Padre. The heated air currents will keep the contraption on the winds.”

“Such a wonderful device! I could not have achieved it without the diagrams from the Codex!” Leonardo exclaimed. He was grinning from ear to ear, tightening the wood and canvas with twine and nail. “Petruccio applied the artist’s touch, Messere. Streamlined it well, we’re quite proud of this invention of ours.”

“We have no other means of accessing the roof of the Palazzo Ducale to save Doge Mocenigo,” Claudia explained. Giovanni had taken it poorly when he witnessed her training with the other Novices just days prior, his anger directed at her impetuousness, and Ezio had interrupted his rant by hastily introducing Sofia with the intent to properly court and wed her. Being distracted by securing such a union with Sofia’s father hadn’t taken as much time as anyone had hoped as Sofia’s father liked Ezio and his siblings quite a lot, and as such Giovanni was still simmering with anger at all of them in general. He ignored Claudia’s comment in favor of inspecting the contraption more thoroughly.

“I’m not sure this is safe.”

“It’s safer than trying to climb an iron fence with sharpened prongs at the top, or charging the main door,” Ezio sighed, scrubbing his face with a hand. “And besides, Claudia is right. There is no other alternative. Either we act now, or the Doge dies and is replaced with a Templar. Padre, what is the point of conferring Master Assassin status on your children if you don’t trust their judgement when you come to visit? You might as well require that we submit letters asking approval in everything because this is what we do. Find the creative solutions to the worst problems in a timely fashion. If you don’t trust us now, then it stands to reason you can’t trust us when you’re back at Monteriggioni either.”

”You’re right.” Giovanni sighed and scrubbed his face with his hand in much the same way Ezio had just done. “I still see my children as toddlers where grown adults now stand. It is not fair to any of you. If you were not my children, I would not have second-guessed as much.” A wry smile turned up the edges of his mouth. “I have to become used to that. Show me how you intend to invade the Palazzo, please.”

Minerva circled the flying contraption nervously as Ezio turned his face into the humid night wind of Venice’s skies and smiled, his tensed posture as relaxed as possible considering the circumstances. The heat of the fires on the rooftops below warmed him with their pleasant updraft against the chill currents sinking down from the cloud bank, and for a few moments he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Instinctively, he angled the canvas wings to turn with the slightest shift of his weight and then leant forward into a dive before pulling abruptly back to climb higher on an updraft from a fire he’d passed.

He’d missed this.

The Palazzo Ducale was bristling with guards from the roof to the entrance, and Ezio let go of the flying machine after gauging his entry point to drop like an arrow straight past the roof patrol and through the window of the open courtyard into the study where Doge Mocenigo and Carlo Barbarigo had been sharing a bottle of wine in front of the fire and discussing politics. Both men sprang away from the table, the crimson liquid staining the carpet and dispersing its pungent fruity odor into the air. Ezio’s nose wrinkled in distaste at what was mingled in the bouquet.

“Poison,” he spat, bowing his head. “Perdonami, Messere. I was too late.”

“Carlo!?” Mocenigo gasped. “You _dare_ to-” his sentence cut off with a gasp as he coughed blood, leaning heavily against the wall.

“A life for a life, you have been avenged,” Ezio growled, delivering a single quick thrust of the Doge’s letter opener to Carlo’s heart and leaving it there. The man let out a choked gurgle and dropped to the floor, dead all but instantly. Deed done, he turned back to the Doge. “Requiescat in Pace.”

“You killed him,” Mocenigo gasped, sliding weakly to the floor. “You killed-”

“If I had arrived sooner, you would not be joining him.” Ezio swallowed. “I will leave you in peace and ah... I was never here.”

Ezio ran to the window and hoisted himself back up to the roof, not caring now how he escaped because that part of the plan had never been discussed. He could say anything he wanted and they would take it at face value, and it was with that in mind that he ran along the tiles and launched himself over the spiked fencing in a perfect leaping arc that no human could ever have successfully executed. Landing on his feet, he sprinted to the edge and jumped to an adjacent roof. Federico appeared directly at his side out of the shadows and the two brothers grinned, racing one another back to their Bureau.

“I had it handled! There was no need to watch for me!” Ezio laughed as they hurdled a large gap and landed on a lower level trellis, using that to grab a bar to propel them to the streets. Startled pedestrians dodged out of the way as they passed and Federico grinned.

“Oh I wasn’t worried! I just wanted to see you in action!”

“And!?”

“Keep your flying machines! I’ll stick to free-running!”

“You’re hopeless, Federico!”

“I know!”

Long after the evening had given way to the bruised cream of dawn, Ezio approached Giovanni in the common area. The elder Auditore was leaning heavily on his crutch, staring forlornly out the large window watching the stars fade from the horizon where the harbor met the sky.

“Padre,” he said respectfully in quiet greeting. “What bothers you?”

“The city has yet to report the death of their Doge,” Giovanni murmured. “They are as yet unaware.” He placed a single hand under his chin in a fist and frowned. “Your skill far excels that of men twice your age, Ezio, to not be caught when entering in such a high profile manner, much less to be able to exit again without being seen. Tell me, how did you end the life of Carlo Barbarigo?”

“With the Doge’s letter opener. To anyone wishing to investigate the murders, it appears to be a betrayal and a last act of vengeance. I was careful to not leave the mark of the Brotherhood when all of Venezia would hear of it before the next evening.” There was a long period of silence. “Padre, why did you choose Federico and not me? Why was I intended to be a banker only, to never know of our birthright? I showed just as much skill when we were younger, despite being the littler and less experienced of the two of us. I know this. Petruccio would never have become an Assassin with his health, the perfect son to inherit the banking business. So why. Why me? Why did you pick me instead?”

“Because I was reminded too much of myself when I looked into your eyes,” Giovanni sighed. “I still am, if I am to be honest. And as the years have worn on I have found myself resenting this War more and more. I was never pleased to be an Assassin, Ezio. I suppose, in some way, I wanted you to live the life I was denied. In much the same way I see your mother in Claudia, and my desire has always been to keep Maria as far from the dealings of the Assassins as possible. I suppose... I suppose that I lost sight of it. Of the fact that the very choice of my life path I was denied I was now denying my children by giving them the life I wanted, never once considering they might have preferred the life I have come to resent.”

Minerva flew to the window and perched on the sill, chirping and fanning her feathers as she requested a treat. Ezio pulled a piece of meat from the evening’s dinner and gave it to her, fondly preening her head feathers as she scarfed it down.

“I wasn’t aware you had taken up falconry,” Giovanni commented, blinking. Ezio smiled.

“Minerva is a mother hen, constantly berating the Novices for poor choices. And she is a loyal companion. I value her company.”

“As you have come to value the company of Sofia Sartor,” came the astute reply. Ezio ducked his head with a sheepish grin and his father smirked. “I approve. And so does Messere Sartor. Consider yourselves engaged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that this chapter is shorter than usual. It's a prep chapter, meaning that I had loose ends I needed to address before getting to the content I really wanted to dig in on.


	27. Arno's Journey III: Master and Mentor

“Nice robes,” Élise said tightly as they crept through the Parisian palace looking for the king’s study. “They suit you well.”

“They are the robes of a Master Assassin and a Mentor both,” Arno muttered, step light and silent beside the click of her boot heels. “Could you possibly make any more noise? I think there are a few guards who aren’t aware we’re here yet.”

“Templars rarely sneak about,” Élise sniffed. “And when we do, we pay hires to do it for us.”

“You might keep your hands clean of the dirt, but the ink marks the deed.”

“Poetic. And extremely condescending.”

They pulled open the door to the study, Arno’s sharp hearing and reflexes allowing him to dodge to the side and place his blade at a soldier’s neck while the soldier held a gun to Élise’s heart.

“I’d put the pistol down, mon frère,” Arno warned. “My blade is far swifter than your trigger.”

“And you’re quite sure of that, are you?” The man asked haughtily, flinching when he glanced into Arno’s eyes and saw something decidedly inhuman flickering within them. He swallowed, lowering the weapon, and allowing Élise to grab it from him. “Ah... apologies. It seems we are all at cross yet aligned purposes. Officially, I was never here. Also officially, I suspect the pair of you don’t exist...”

“The Lady does, I however do not,” Arno confirmed. “Your name? Looking for private documents?”

“Bonaparte. State secrets, correspondence... special trinkets, that sort of thing.” Unease colored the stranger’s voice even as he stepped back to poke about in the drawers of the desk. “And you?”

“Letters, that would be of great interest to certain factions, that need not concern such factions,” Élise said primly, handing back the confiscated weapon - now unloaded - as Arno strode directly to the hidden switch and opened the secret vault. Both Bonaparte and Élise blinked in surprise at this, though Arno ignored them to snoop about in the new space.

“Élise, do us a favor and guard the door, I fear we’ll have uninvited guests within moments,” he said calmly as he found what he was looking for and tossed it directly into the fireplace. The stranger hesitantly approached the vault beside him and rifled about. Élise frowned, opening her mouth to argue, when several mercenaries burst into the room. With a sigh of exasperation for his heightened senses, she engaged.

“Wonderful fighter,” Bonaparte said softly as he focused on his search.

“We trained together as children,” Arno muttered, shoving a stack of documents into his arms. “Burn those, I need to help her.” The man just blinked at the odd couple, sighed, and did as asked. They were, after all, kind enough to save his skin after rendering him defenseless. His gaze alighted on an ornately carved box and he grinned as he pulled it from the vault, opening it and picking up the glowing golden sphere within. The metal was hard, yet felt soft and warm, the light it emitted mesmerizing.

“That’s an Apple!” Élise exclaimed. “How did the king of France acquire an _Apple!?_ ” Arno’s expression hardened as he strode quickly over and plucked it direct from Bonaparte’s grasp, the Lieutenant opening his mouth to protest before falling silent in awe as glowing golden lines shimmered into existence underneath Arno’s skin on contact with the artifact. His gaze was molten gold, sharp and burning, and Élise was left quietly gaping as well as he looked the object over and sighed before shoving it deep into his satchel.

“Objects of Heaven among men, and I fear angels have come to reclaim them,” Bonaparte murmured, unnerved. Both Arno and Élise fixed him with an exasperated look before the sound of pounding footsteps forced them to flee via Bonaparte’s secret passage.

Down on the main floor, a loud explosion greeted them as a cannon blast tore a large hole into the exterior wall. Bonaparte’s men moved to greet him even as Arno and Élise pushed them aside to dash into the street.

“Best not to linger, sir!” Élise suggested as they ran off.

“All well, sir?” One of Bonaparte’s men asked hesitantly. Bonaparte smirked.

“As can be with the judgement of Heaven upon us,” he said cryptically. His gaze was fixed on Arno. “Send the scouts to garner what information they can on those two. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing them again shortly.”

“Yessir.”

-/\\-

“What are you going to do with it?” Élise asked as they blended into the crowd several streets over.

“Store it in a precursor vault where none will lay hands on it, Templar _or_ Assassin,” he replied easily. Élise frowned.

“That’s not your decision to-”

“To make?” Arno finished for her, stopping and turning to face her. “Then whose is it, Élise? Hm? Do you even know what any of the objects you collect were once used for? No. I do. Not well, never well, but I know how they feel. Apples were used to control humanity, the great workforce experiment created by a superior race long since extinct save for Eagle’s Kin like me or Aita’s Sages like Germain. Hybrids. Hybrids and crumbling ruins, artifacts, are all that remain of those people. Most of them were so lost in their own hubris and confidence that they didn’t see the approach of the Catastrophe until it was too late.”

“I cannot, in good conscience, allow these relics to pass into the modern world. They should have been buried and forgotten long ago, never to resurface.”

“...Arno, what’s wrong?” Élise asked softly, walking over to stand in front of him and lightly cupping his jaw with the tips of her fingers. “This isn’t like you.” His shoulders slumped and he sighed.

“I remember my past life far more clearly than the ones that came before it,” he explained. “Trouble is, my past life happens to contain knowledge of future events. I know that man, Élise. His name is Napoleon Bonaparte, and in 1804, just twelve years from now, he will declare himself Emperor of France. The bloodshed won’t stop, Élise. We have such a long and bloody road ahead of us, and I just...” he raised his eyes toward the smoke-filled sky and shut them tight to draw a shuddering breath. “There is an inherent futility to existence, Élise. We struggle to live so that eventually we will die. And knowing that we have only just begun, _seeing evidence_ of this beginning of bloodshed...”

“We work in the dark, to serve the light,” Élise said softly, fingers drifting down from his jaw to press lightly against the center of his chest. “Your Order, and mine also. We shield the world from the truth that we both recognize. We do so for different reasons, but in the end we take upon ourselves the burden of knowledge that would crush lesser men and women. We do so in service of a higher cause, regardless of which cause it is that we serve. Even heavier is the burden of the Assassin, I fear, that does so without hope of recognition or gain compared to the aspirations of the Templar.”

“Élise...”

“Don’t lose faith, Arno. The sun will shine again.”

“Do you ever stop to wonder how differently things might have gone, if Shay Patrick Cormac had not killed my father?” Arno asked, shaking his head slightly and resuming the walk back toward the Assassin’s headquarters to report the news of a successful evidence destruction. Élise laughed slightly.

“All the time. I’d have no one to annoy, no one to annoy me in return...” He rolled his eyes but nodded, a silent grateful acknowledgement of her attempt to lighten the mood.


	28. Desmond's Journey III: Sanctuary

“We need to go!”

Desmond groaned as he was all but yanked out of the Animus, pinching his nose and clenching his eyes shut for a few moments to separate himself from his past self before taking in his surroundings and frowning. Shaun and Rebecca were packing the equipment, Lucy quite obviously scrubbing the drives of whatever they couldn’t take with them, and he was on his feet in an instant gathering his gear and stalking toward the door.

“Abstergo?” He asked. Nobody bothered to answer; the question was redundant. Nodding to himself, Desmond crept silently down the hallway toward the ramp and crouched low to the floor as the distant sounds of a truck backing toward the warehouse loading dock reached his sensitive ears. Keeping his breath even, he notched an arrow onto the drawstring of his newly-crafted predator bow and drew it back.

The first guard to step into line of sight fell dead before he hit the floor, the arrow protruding neatly in the center of his left eye, and with a seasoned hunter’s patience Desmond tracked the shadows of the guards that followed as they balked from the idea of taking a step further. It wasn’t often you came across a master bowman anymore, and ironically it inspired more fear than a professional of guns. A sniper was a sniper. Both skill sets killed from a distance regardless of the weapon used.

A second guard fell, another arrow to the eye. The shadows danced, tantalizing, just out of reach. Desmond moved position to get a better angle, creeping along the catwalks and boxes near the roof of the building.

_Twang._

Three guards in as many minutes, each fatally accurate. Nike chirped, excited, as she swooped down from the rafters and began harassing those that remained, which distracted them and brought them within Desmond’s line of sight once again. They retreated, clearly unwilling to venture further into an Eagle’s Aerie when they couldn’t even spot who was shooting at them, and Desmond grimaced as he imagined the frantic call being put through calling for more equipped reinforcements.

It was almost insulting, the ineptitude that Vidic had thought was more than adequate to recapture him.

“Desmond!” We need to- what the- what the Hell did you do!?” Lucy exclaimed, gaping at the victims on the floor. She blinked when she realized he was nowhere in sight, letting out a slight shriek of surprise when he dropped from the rafters in one neat dive. Shaun and Rebecca arrived behind her as he salvaged his arrows, both of them clearly unnerved. Folding the arms over the dead men’s chests he closed their eyes and offered a collective customary conveyance of peace toward the afterlife, then looked up at his team.

“They’re outside, calling for reinforcements,” he explained. “How much time until we can leave?”

“This is the last of the equipment,” Shaun stuttered, swallowing. He blinked as Nike drifted through the warehouse and perched on a packing crate, _screeing_ at the entry where the Abstergo team had come in. After a few moments she stilled, feathers compacting in as close to her body as possible as she hunkered down, and Desmond frowned.

“Get it in the van, I’ll meet you.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Lucy said stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning. “Without you, this doesn’t work. If you get captured-”

“I won’t get captured.” His gaze turned flinty. “But Vidic is out there, and I have a job to do.”

“Let’s go,” Shaun said softly, nudging Rebecca to prompt her down the ramp. She startled, an undefinable look in her eyes, before moving. Lucy was the first to look away in the staring contest, and heaving a sigh she followed the other two toward the van.

“You took your time,” Desmond murmured quietly once they were out of earshot. Nike chirped contentedly and fluttered over to land on the Fox’s shoulder as he stepped out of the shadows and shrugged.

“Rush hour. We don’t have long, old friend. Where to now?”

“They’re going to want the Apple I left in Juno’s temple,” Desmond sighed. “Gonna want to see my memories of it.” He smirked. “Too bad Flavia was born ten months after the Vault.”

“I thought you moved the Apple to Masyaf to be with the other one,” the Fox said with a frown.

“I did. And then every artifact found since went the same way. Ones I’d buried before, I dug up and put there... let’s just say it’s a good thing no one can open it except for me because of the touch memory feature.”

“Or me.”

“Well, that goes without saying.” They frowned as heavy footfalls heralded the arrival of more Abstergo troops, the sound more organized and - well. Military. “Oh boy. These guys just don’t give up, do they?” The Fox cracked his neck with a simple jerk of his chin and grinned ferally.

“Just like old times, eh little Eagle?”

“Watch it, young fox,” Desmond murmured, a sly smile sparking mischief in his eyes as they positioned themselves to handle the incoming onslaught. “I’ve got perfect memory.”

“Right, sorry, _old_ Eagle.”

“Don’t care about anyone else, but Vidic is mine.” It came out as a low growl. “We’ve got a score.”

“Then settle it, my friend.”

A black ops strike team burst into the warehouse and the two fell into a time-honored dance, knives flashing and footwork impeccable. Even trained by a Black Cross, none of them were a match for the dual tandem of an Eagle and a Fox, who tore through them like a hurricane. Vidic had just enough time to realize his big mistake before he knew no more, Desmond’s blade cleanly severing his carotid in one swift movement.

_“Requiescat in Pace.”_

When the dust settled, they both took a moment to clean their blades on the clothing of their victims and eyed one another over. Both of them were spotless, Desmond in his white hoodie and the Fox in his burgundy utility jacket. They exchanged a single glance before Desmond let out a shirt, trilling whistle and caught Nike on his arm, walking at a leisurely pace toward the van where the rest of the team were storing the last of the gear.

“You can relax if you want, but we definitely should be getting out of here,” Desmond said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. Rebecca ducked as Nike flew directly over her head and made herself at home in the back of the van, staring at the creature for a few moments before blinking and turning back to them.

“Uh, who’s he?” Lucy asked, pointing at the Fox.

”He was the blacksmith I told you about a week ago,” Shaun sighed, lifting his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. He raised an eyebrow. “Was that even your forge?”

“The owner was on an unexpected but very nice all expense paid trip to Boca for a month.”

“Wonder how that happened.”

“The world works in mysterious ways.”

“‘ey Foxe, catch!” Desmond called, hefting a case of hard drives in a single-handed throw. The Fox let out a heavy grunt as he caught it square in the chest and stumbled backward. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget that...”

“Yeah, no kidding. Where do you want this?” Rebecca blinked at him before pointing, and he climbed into the van to deposit it. “They know who I am?”

“Gilbert Fox, I mentioned you a couple times.”

“...Wait, _this_ is your ‘Uncle Gilbert!?’ He hardly looks ten years older than-”

“W-w-way-wait, wait a minute,” Shaun stuttered. “I _knew_ you looked familiar. You’re Volpe! As in- as in _Volpe_ , Ezio’s immortal staff keeper... person!”

“Thanks man,” Desmond muttered. Shaun winced, realizing his mistake.

“I am,” the Fox said smoothly. “I have had many pseudonyms over the years, so please. Simply call me ‘Fox.’ I’m here because I caught wind of the work you were doing, and naturally I’m more than a little invested. Thought I’d tag along.”

“I have to talk to Bill,” Lucy sighed, massaging her temples. The Fox smirked.

“Go ahead. He knows I won’t listen to him anyway. We have a... history.”

“...Great. Just... great.”

They packed the van up, the women in the front and the men in the back, the silence exceedingly awkward as the Fox opened a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips and loudly crunched on them while they drove to a new safe house.

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: ALL RIGHTS GO TO UBISOFT, ASSASSIN’S CREED, AND ANY OTHER KNOWN AFFILIATES. THIS IS A NOT FOR PROFIT FANWORK.
> 
> UPDATES SPORADICALLY AT RANDOM. SUBJECTED ENTIRELY TO THE WHIMS OF THE AUTHOR’S FANCY.


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